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PRESENTED BY 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 

OF 

WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 








1901, AGE 60 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 

OF 

WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 



PRESIDENT OF THE 

WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 

AND OF THE 

CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 



BY HIS SON 

CHARLES H. BAKER 

V 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

THE PREMIER PRESS 

1908 






AUTHOR'S NOTE. 

THREE hundred copies of this book have been 
printed for gratuitous distribution among the 
friends of William T. Baker, in the belief that 
those who knew him intimately in life would value 
highly this brief story of his career. If any have been 
overlooked, it was unintentional on the part of those 
few of his intimate friends who made up the list of 
names to whom copies have been presented by the 
author, and from whom prompt acknowledgment is 
requested in order that the safe delivery of the books 
may be noted. 



Gif 
Auth 
'(■Poreon 




Dorothy 



DEDICATION 



TO you, my little daughter Dorothy, your Daddy 
dedicates this book. I do so because your 
Grandpa loved you from the day you first came 
into the world on his birthday until the day he 
went out of it, and he loves you still. He loves you 
because you came down from him and are of him; — 
but he loves you most because it is you, just as he 
would a flower, because it is a flower — because it is 
pretty and sweet, God-given and inspiring. 



PREFACE 

"We should look at the lives of all as at a mirror, and 
take from others an example for ourselves." — Terrence. 

THE idea of this book first came into my mind as 
a medium for giving to my children a picture of a 
character worthy of their emulation, by placing 
them in close touch with the life and character of a 
real person of their own blood, who had lived a whole- 
some, useful and honorable life, and had added more 
than one man's share to the world's work. By reading 
of my father's life, and letting him dwell in spirit 
with them, his* grandchildren and his posterity will 
find inspiration and encouragement for better and 
more useful living and for greater accomplishment, 
although his name would live without this book. This 
story I had thought to make up in a few typewritten 
copies for the restricted use related, but I soon found 
while gathering my data together, that many outside 
of kinship claimed the right to a copy, and hence the 
printed book. 

The preparation of this biography during my spare 
moments of the last two years has been a most pleas- 
ant task although it has been fraught with difficulties 
and discouragement, owing to the fact that it is 
founded more upon the personal recollections of people 
than upon documentary evidence. The older gener- 
ation from whom I might draw, has gone, or else 
its remnants are falling like autumnal leaves and 
have only hazy memories of the past. The newer gen- 
eration knew him onlv in his later life and cannot tell 



of him as a young man or boy. No relatives except 
his children and a younger brother survive him. 
There are those still living in the three little New 
York villages, where I recently visited for the pur- 
poses of this biography, who lived there when he did 
as a boy before the villages grew too small for him, 
but they, naturally enough, with dulled memories, do 
not recollect much about him. There are others who 
were his playmates and associates, and a sweetheart 
or two who survive him and remember him well, and 
to these as well as to reminiscences by himself and 
such as I remember of his telling, I look largely for 
the story of his early life. To all those friends of my 
father and myself who have so kindly and earnestly 
assisted me in gathering the material for this 
biography, I extend my grateful appreciation. 

In telling this story, I have tried to do so without 
any coloring or prejudice, so as to display my father 
in the light of cold facts as he was — no better and no 
worse, as he himself always wished to be considered. 
If, therefore, I have seemingly made a hero out of him 
where moderation would have done, I beg as my 
excuse that I had a father of whom I was justly 
proud and whom I loved without reserve — so that I 
saw him from a different viewpoint than others did — 
that's all. 

CHARLES H. BAKER. 

ioo Broadway, New York City. 
January i, 1908. 



CONTENTS 

Chapters Page 

Author's Note 4 

Dedication 5 

Preface 7 

I. Boyhood Life in West Winfield, 1841-1855 13 

II. As a Youth in Groton and McLean, 1855-1861. . . 27 

III. Career in Chicago, 1861-1903 41 

IV. Eliza Annie Dunster, 1838-1873 83 

A'. Chicago Board of Trade, 1890-1897 Ill 

VI. World's Columbian Exposition, 1890-1893 153 

VII. The Civic Federation, 1895-1897 165 

VIII. Snoqualmie Falls and White River Power Develop- 
ments, 1887-1904 175 

IX. Art Institute of Chicago, 1878-1903 267 

X. Home Life and Character 273 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



/ William Taylor Baker Frontispiece 

Dorothy Page 5 

( West Winfield, New York Facing " 13 

' Birthplace of William Taylor Baker " 18 

- Rural Scene at West Winfield " " 18 

/ Cobble Stone School House, West Winfield, " " 18 

/ Mother of William Taylor Baker " " 22 

J William Taylor Baker, Aged 8 Years " " 22 

/ In This Store My Father Worked as a Boy 

at Groton, New York " " 27 

I Village Hotel, Groton, New York " " 27 

V Millpond and Swimming Pool at McLean. . . " 34 

/ Residence of Mr. Marsh, at McLean " " 34 

^ Village of McLean, New York " " 38 

^ William Taylor Baker (four portraits) " 41 

J Cartoon, "The Wheat Kings" " 71 

•/ The Chicago Homestead Facing " 74 

v Anna Franklin (Phipps) (Morgan) Baker. . " " 78 

v Exmoor Cottage — The Summer Home " " 78 

* Grave of Henry Dunster " " 83 

i Birthplace of Eliza Annie Dunster " " 83 

/ The Original Bradford Academy, 1858 " " 83 



List of Illustrations — Continued 
i Samuel Dunster Facing Page 100 



, Eliza Annie (Dunster) Baker " 

, Grandchildren of William Taylor Baker. ... " 
,' The Dunster Farmhouse near Attleboro,Mass. 

J Chicago Board of Trade, "The Pit" " 

i Cartoon, "Scenes at the Polls" 

% Cartoon, "Gov. Tanner's 'Monte Carlo' " 

I World's Columbian Exposition 

* The Court of Honor Facing 

4 Administration Building 

i Snoqualmie Falls, Height 270 Feet " 

> Subterranean 19,000 H. P. Generating Plant. " 
^ Longitudinal Section, Snoqualmie Power Plant " 
J Constructing Dam Above Snoqualmie Falls. 

J Diagram of Power Distribution 

% Seattle Substation and General Offices Facing 

J Tacoma Substation " 

I Centennial Mill " 

White River Power Plant " 

J Cartoon, "Charge of the Light Brigade" 

1 Cartoon, "Grand Hypnotic Exhibition at City Hall". 
j Art Institute of Chicago Facing 

Glimpses of My Father at Exmoor 

v The Baker Lot in Graceland 



100 
100 
106 
111 
132 
146 

153 

160 
175 
175 
192 
192 
193 
198 
198 
224 
224 
236 
253 
267 
273 
293 



Chapter I 

BOYHOOD LIFE IN WEST WINFIELD 

1841-1855 

NOTHING appears to be known of this par- 
ticular Baker family prior to my grandfather, 
who was William Baker, born in Bradford, 
England, about 1799. In that country, he was a baker 
by trade as well as by name, and he had been a butcher 
too. He came to this country in 1838 and drifted to 
West Winfield, a small village of about one hundred 
and fifty people, in Herkimer County, New York. 
Here he made a pretence of earning a livelihood, by 
doing chores about the village, acting as porter and 
hostler to the village inn, and working upon the neigh- 
borhood farms. He is remembered as a man who was 
not always sober, which fact to some extent at least 
undermined his usefulness. Yet notwithstanding his 
shortcomings, he was in some respects, a remarkable 
character. He was a man of good address, and well 
groomed considering his circumstances. He was well 
versed in the current topics of the day and was con- 
sidered an authority in the village upon political, 
scientific and social subjects pertaining to any part of 
the world that excited ordinary interest. He was a 
reader of many books and papers, chiefly historical, 
and so in a way was scholarly, deep and intellectual, 



14 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

although without the fundamental advantages of very 
much school education. He could talk and tell stories 
better than any one in the village, and so he was enter- 
taining, not only because of a certain fluency of speech 
and pleasing diction, but because of a well developed 
sense of humor. But in this grandsire of mine, there 
was something lacking to make a complete man of 
him. He seemed not to be able to put out an anchor 
that would hold. In commercial and financial instinct 
he apparently was a void. He was not religious. He 
lacked the capacity to find profitable work or to do it 
well if he found it. The knack of getting on in the 
world was not his, and so he was unsettled and shift- 
less, obstinate in disposition, and not fixed in any 
purpose except to be agreeable around the village inn 
and drown his discontent in the flowing bowl. 
"A man so various, that he seemed to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome ; 
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong, 
Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 
But in the course of one revolving moon, 
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon." 

— Dryden. 
There lived in West Winfield, about this time, a 
sterling widow, Mrs. Williams, who as a maiden was 
Matilda Taylor, and she was born in Stonington, 
Connecticut, on the ioth of May, 1801. Her husband, 
Ralph Williams, had been a thrifty farmer, attending 
to his business and providing amply for his family. 
He died with but small estate after there had been 
three children. These children were:- — Samuel G. 



BOYHOOD LIFE IN WEST WINFIELD 15 

Williams, who in his later life became Professor of 
Geology in Cornell University; Ralph B. Williams, 
who became Secretary of the Groton Bridge Company, 
of Groton, N. Y., and Minnie Williams, who became 
Mrs. Charles Perrigo, of Groton, N. Y. A small 
house was purchased with the diminutive fortune of 
her deceased husband and here the family lived as 
long as they remained in the village. Then it came 
about that Mrs. Williams married my grandfather 
William Baker, and to them came children in the 
following order, all born in her homestead: — Alfred 
Baker, William Taylor Baker, my father, Eliza Baker 
and George Henry Baker, the last named being the 
only one now living, and who is successfully engaged 
in the butcher's trade at Ithaca, N. Y. 

What brought my grandparents together as a mar- 
ried pair is hardly decypherable at this late time. Per- 
haps he wanted shelter over his head which she was 
already able to provide. Perhaps she wanted some- 
one to talk to or to help around the garden and house, 
or perhaps they loved each other, — who knows ? At 
any rate, they decided to live their lives together. 
Now, inasmuch as she was a deep dyed Methodist 
who believed devoutedly in hellfire and brimstone for 
those who wandered from the straight and narrow 
path and heaven for those who did not do so, she of 
course, believed in cold water in preference to alcohol, 
and so probably grew to have less esteem for her 
husband than she would have had, had he been as 
virtuous as she. She possessed the highest order of 



16 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

thrift, intelligence, nerve, good sense, morality and 
spirituality. She was what he was not. His inten- 
tions were good, but he failed to fulfill them. He 
only helped support his family, but that was not 
enough when the number of little hungry mouths was 
increasing every year. So she learned the trade of 
tailoress and worked early and late at such times as 
she could spare from her children, at making clothes 
by hand, for sewing machines were not thought of 
then. 

Thus it was that my grandfather and grandmother 
got on together, like oil and water. So it was natural 
enough that they should go their own ways independ- 
ently, he resigning her to the task of bringing up the 
children, and she resigning him to a job on a farm 
near Winfield, where he died January 4th, 1870. He 
was buried in the village cemetery, where his grand- 
children have provided a suitable stone to mark his 
resting place. 

Grandmother Baker lived to be eighty-one years 
old and died in Groton, N. Y., November 15th, 1882, 
where she had lived the latter part of her life. Her 
children claim that the good in them came from her, 
either by direct inheritance or by the training with 
which she followed it up. This undoubtedly is true 
to a large extent, and yet in my father's case, as I 
see him, he drew from both his parents, and as the 
composite of the best in them both, he developed into 
the really great man as we know him. But what 
great man ever lived who did not have a great mother ? 



BOYHOOD LIFE IN WEST WINFIELD 17 

Not necessarily great in the glamour of world history, 
but grfcat in the undisclosed measure of us all as we 
finally appear before the last Tribunal. Is it not reas- 
onable that it should be so, for who but the mother 
gives to the child directly that which was of herself? 
And so in recognition of this, and of my father's devo- 
tion to his mother, I place her as a character of the 
first order in this book which tells his story. 

The situation in the Baker household as I have 
portrayed it, had its logical outcome, and so the family 
old and young, big and little, had to scatter and face 
the world upon their individual resources. Maybe 
this situation in life was a good thing for the subject 
of this sketch, as it put him on his mettle. But the 
embryo of greatness was in him anyway and would 
undoubtedly have developed in true Rooseveltian 
fashion even though the vicissitudes of life and pov- 
erty had not spurred him to his best efforts. 

William Taylor Baker was born in West Winfield, 
Herkimer County, New York, September nth, 1841, 
and he lived there until his fourteenth year. He was 
given his father's christian name and his mother's 
maiden name. Just what he was and what he did 
there until he was fourteen years old, I have been 
unable to discover much about, although I doubt not 
that as a baby he was one of the precocious kind, who 
sit up in their cradles to better view the surroundings, 
who try to invent improvements in their cradles, or 
trade them for something better or something more 
to eat, and who manage their mothers with an assumed 



18 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

authority which is seldom disputed. At least, I justify 
my theory upon the hypothesis that what he after- 
wards became, had its beginning in the cradle in his 
first year. He grew to be a freckled faced boy, lively 
and wide awake in every way and was the favorite 
brother of his older sister Minnie, who had much to 
do in helping their mother to bring him up. He was 
slight in build and not overly robust physically, 
although all people who dicuss him at that stage of 
his life, tell of his active and very earnest mind and 
his spirited and happy disposition. He was also a 
bad boy when he wanted to be but only to a degree 
made necessary by the fact that he was a boy. The 
Baptist Church stands next to his mother's house. It 
did then and it does now, although the little old wooden 
one has given place to a new one of brick. "Billy 
Baker" as they called him had grown rich enough in 
his own right and through his small earnings at odd 
times to own a powerful pistol. With this he shot holes 
through the walls of the church, and the bombard- 
ment caused the plaster to fall on the pulpit and in 
the pews, and prompted his mother to whip him until 
he was humble enough to beg forgiveness from the 
preacher. And then again at one time he issued a 
declaration of independence in favor of himself and 
against home and mother, and apprenticed himself 
out to be a carpenter until the time of his majority, 
which was only a dozen of years ahead. But he was 
not long at work in his chosen profession before he 
saw his father coming down the road in the distance 




Cobble Stone School House, West Wtxfield. 



BOYHOOD LIFE IN WEST WINFIELD 19 

wearing a stern look and a strap which meant a 
licking, so he deserted his new master and went back 
home by a round about way. He did not apprentice 
himself out again. It was natural enough that he 
should have gravitated to a carpenter's shop, for he 
was clever with his hands and could whittle skillfully 
with his jackknife, and do other things which he liked 
to do. He could build little railroads around in his 
mother's garden, shaping up the earth into miniature 
railroad grades, crossing little imaginary rivers on 
bridges and running his lines under the current bushes 
for forests and through tunnels under hand made 
mountains. Construction operations came natural to 
him at that time. So also was trading, and his jack- 
knife was apt to be a better one than the one he traded 
off for it. Even when a grown man he liked to work 
with tools and study plans and watch construction, 
and this instinct, together with his liking and aptitude 
for business were the fundamental elements under- 
lying his future career. 

This same Billy Baker was good to his mother 
and sisters as were the other brothers. He 
helped his mother in the work about the place, 
and he did chores around the village; also such 
farm work as a boy could do, and there wasn't 
much about a farm a boy could not do or was not 
made to do in those days. He could tread hay, and 
guide the horse riding bareback in front of the plow 
or cultivator in the corn field, and he took the cow 
out in the morning and brought her back at night and 



20 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

milked her; and he didn't often aim at spots or flies 
on the wall with the thin white filaments, unless some 
one was around to be entertained thereby, for milk 
in those days was food, and it was not right to waste 
food while mother had to work. 

My father often said he only had one year's school- 
ing in his life, and this was at the little cobblestone 
district school house in West Winfield, which has since 
been torn down. I was fortunate, however, in being 
able to secure a picture of it as shown in this 
book. He stood at the head of the school and I sup- 
pose he learned all they had to teach him, for such 
schools in those days did not have much learning to 
dispense. And yet with this primitive and limited 
inoculation of erudition, see the manner of man he 
eventuated into finally ! Who would know in talking 
with him and listening to him as we saw him last, 
but what he had taken several degrees in some of the 
great universities? Where could be found a more 
cultured gentleman? Or one more impressive and 
scholarly? Notwithstanding however his restricted 
opportunities, he was very studious, and read books 
in his idle hours from the time he first learned to read, 
and particularly historical books. He was an authority 
upon the life of Napoleon Bonaparte and knew him 
through and through as a historical character, and 
he delivered lectures on the subject to the boys of the 
village. I suspect that he took his cue in life from 
Napoleon, for most boys usually set up in their minds 
a model to follow and he evidently chose Napoleon for 



BOYHOOD LIFE IN WEST WINFIELD 21 

his, and unconsciously took on many of his stronger 
attributes. He was a most ardent admirer of the 
great French hero, and proclaimed his genius and 
virtues upon every suitable occasion, condoning his 
shortcomings like a champion, and sympathizing with 
him in his reverses. A schoolmate of his remembers 
him saying — "How very unjust it is to Napoleon's 
memory for the people to consider the reverses and 
the record of his last years of life as the just measure 
of his whole career." 

The brief schooling which Father got in West Win- 
held, inadequate as it was, had to be discontinued when 
the necessities of the family compelled him to do 
something to assist in his and their support ; therefore, 
when he was about fourteen years old, he went to 
work for Julius Bisby, who owned the country store 
in the village. His duties consisted in measuring out 
calico, beans, vinegar, tobacco, candy and other things 
to the villagers and farmers, and in helping to keep 
the books of the establishment, always first on the 
scene in the morning to open the store in order to 
sweep it out and get ready for business. This he did 
all day and every day, excepting Sundays, and he 
devoted himself largely to reading and studying in 
the evenings. The fact that his mother was an ortho- 
dox Christian who believed in heaven and hell and no 
middle situation for departed souls, scared him and 
the other children into keeping in the straight path. 
Under the threat of eternal damnation, she invoked 
their obedience to the ordinary and accepted code of 



22 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

morals, with the promise that such obedience would 
eventually make white winged angels of them; and 
they all looked forward to becoming angels. Father 
was not a churchman, due doubtless to the over drastic 
religious teachings of his mother with which he was 
not in accord, for although he was a Christian gentle- 
man and reverently believed in God and the hereafter, 
he was inclined to be liberal in his views and to suffer 
himself to be guided by the teachings of his own 
conscience, rather than by the precepts and the stric- 
tures of an old fashioned and narrow school of 
religion. 

My father as a boy, and in fact throughout his 
development, looked like his father, but his tempera- 
ment, disposition and character have been drawn more 
largely from his estimable mother. I did not learn 
that he was athletic in the way that country boys are 
apt to be, or that he had had recorded to his credit any 
victories in pugilistic encounters with the village boys. 
His fighting tendencies seem to have been developed 
more in a mental capacity than physical, and every 
one with whom he came in contact in matters of debate 
or clash of wits got worsted. Such encounters he 
seemed to have sought, as. being much to his liking. 
He evidently had, however, a pair of fine arms, for 
they tell of his liking to roll up his sleeves and display 
their good form and grace with their muscles in 
tension, and this show of physical excellence seems to 
be about the only demonstration which he was in 
the habit of making. 




Matilda Taylor Baker — Aged 70. 
mother of wm. t. baker. 




Wm. T. Baker 1849— Aged 8. 

HIS BROTHER AND SISTER ON EITHER SIDE. 



BOYHOOD LIFE IN WEST WINFIELD 23 

The year of service in the country store paid him 
well in experience but little in money. How well this 
particular first business engagement in his life paid 
him, I was unable to ascertain from his contemporaries 
now living, although I was more successful in the two 
succeeding villages to which he migrated later. He 
probably did not earn over a dollar a week. He slept 
under the counter in the store, not only for the purpose 
of being the first on hand in the morning, in order to 
clear the decks for business, but as a sort of watch 
dog of the supplies which were kept in the store. In 
fact, it was common in those days to shut a dog up in 
a store at night with liberty to roam about and attack 
intruders, or else to have a boy sleep there to perform 
the same duty, for it was common for thieves to 
attempt to pillage such places, in order to supply their 
needs without rendering the usual equivalent there- 
for. 

His mother, as I have stated, was industrious from 
morning, to night in the care of her children and in 
the doing of tailoring work for their support, while 
their father spent much of his time as an idle orna- 
ment about the place, or the village rendezvous. She 
worked after the sun set in order to accomplish more, 
and these late hours had to be illuminated by the light 
of tallow dips or candles, which were in vogue before 
the invention of kerosene oil. Then came the cam- 
phine lamps, no larger nor no better than the tallow 
dip, and finally in the evolution of artificial illumina- 
tion as the country grew, kerosene oil and lamps to 



24 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

use it came into practice. Father, ever devoted to 
his mother, and solicitous for her welfare, immedi- 
ately bought from his savings a primitive kerosene 
lamp, to conserve his mother's eyes ; — and for the pur- 
pose of operating it, he supplied her with a gallon of 
kerosene oil, which bore a red color in those days, and 
which cost him $1.25. 

The village of West Winfield is sixteen miles south 
of Utica, which was the nearest railway station at 
that time (1855) and accessible by a stage running 
daily. The village contained a bank, a weekly paper, 
a Methodist and a Baptist church, a tannery and two 
grist mills. The fifty years since then has not any 
more than doubled its population. There are now 
about four or five hundred people there and in that 
vicinity. Father never went back to his native village 
after he left it as a boy, and I often wonder that neither 
sentiment nor curiosity ever impelled him to do so. 
I went there last summer and tramped over every 
inch of ground that he did. All I needed to do was to 
roll back half a century of years and imagine that I 
was the real and original Billy. It thrilled me to do 
so. It filled me with unspeakable joy just to sleep one 
night as I did there in the same night stillness, to be 
lulled to my dreams by the same cricket and katydid, 
to see the same houses and the same trees — now more 
stately with age, to stand by the same mill pond where 
he went swimming and fishing, to see the same pretty 
girls flirting and gossiping with the same ruddy boys, 
to tramp on the same dusty road and to gaze at the 



BOYHOOD LIFE IN WEST WINFIELD 25 

same beautiful hills and valleys. Yes, all just the 
same as when he was there, only, with fresh crickets, 
katydids and girls to take the place of those which 
had gone down the corridors of time. I knocked at 
the door of the very house in which he was born; — 
little, humble, and old it is. I told them who I was 
and that I had come after fifty years to see the place 
where he had been. They respected my errand and 
allowed me to go all through it, in every nook and 
corner, — apologizing for appearances, as they said 
they had not expected visitors ; — up the creaky stairs 
with the same thin and rickety railing, and in the 
little room, the very identical little room, where he 
came into being. In my imagination, I could hear 
the baby cry and could see its mother's look of tender 
love and pride for the new come joy. And then I 
left, and as I went off down the street, I looked back 
again and again where little Billy had been, and won- 
dered if he from the Great Beyond could then see 
me and feel my great love for him as I stood there 
transfixed in the contemplation of the spirits of the 
past, and feeling for the moment that I too was a 
little boy myself, waiting — waiting for him to come 
out who never could come again. 




In this Store My Father Worked as a Boy, at Groton, N. Y 




Village Hotel, Groton, N. Y. 
where the dances were held. 



Chapter II 
AS A YOUTH IN GROTON AND McLEAN 

1855-1861 

WITH his education apparently completed at 
the age of thirteen and having completed a 
preliminary business career of one year as 
related at the age of fourteen, Father grew too big 
for West Winfield and resolved to seek a larger and 
more inviting field. The vilage of Groton, Tompkins 
County, New York, of about four or five hundred 
people, and ninety miles from Winfield to the south- 
west, was the place which attracted him ; probably for 
the reason that he had a better opportunity, but 
undoubtedly for the principal reason that his older 
brother, Professor Williams, was in that village teach- 
ing the only school in the place, namely the Groton 
Academy. Thither he went without his mother, and 
because of his brother's connection with the school 
he was able to get free the schooling, which otherwise 
would have cost him $21.00 per year. In the same 
school his brother Ralph was janitor and his sister 
Minnie was also a student, so that the family as a 
whole were an important factor in educational matters 
in Groton. There were no railroads running to Groton 
nor within fifty miles of it, so Father may have 
tramped it in reaching there, or staged it, or got a 



28 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

lift in some farmer's wagon. The village had a 
machine shop and foundry, and having more stores 
and houses, was more pretentious generally than 
West Winneld. 

Father went to work as clerk for Styles Berry, who 
ran a general store in Groton, and served for a period 
of six months. Some say that Berry was the meanest 
man in Groton village and much too close with his 
money, and consequently Father was under much 
restraint, and the liberties usually allowed to a grow- 
ing boy were well curtailed. He slept under Mr. 
Berry's counter at night, dreaming of what a mean 
employer he had and how unpromising his prospects 
seemed to be. Berry was or pretended to be religious, 
and went early to Church on Sunday, looking sancti- 
monious and good, while in the week days under the 
cloak of piety, he would wonder how he could squeeze 
his neighbors just a little harder or get a little more 
work out of Billy, his clerk-bookkeeper- janitor- watch- 
dog combination. From Berry's, Father went to work 
for Hyland K. Clark and took his meals at Mr. 
Clark's house, but slept at the store as usual. Just 
how and when he worked in any schooling during his 
life in Groton in 1855 and 1856, is hard to imagine, 
but he did get some by getting out of store duty dur- 
ing the hours when business was slack. 

Mr. Clark took more of an interest in Father's 
welfare because he was a better constructed man than 
was Styles, and also because his sister married Pro- 
fessor Williams who was Father's half brother. The 



AS A YOUTH IN GROTON AND McLEAN 29 

echoes of Father's life in Groton village still sounding, 
indicate that he was a happy young man and took 
things philosophically as they came along, enjoying 
life as best he could, but ever restless and ambitious 
to better his condition in a material way. Grotonites 
speak of him as nice looking. He was jolly, full of 
fun, a good scholar, very cheerful, apt at learning, 
and was the most popular young man in the village 
with the girls, and therefore a society leader. He 
loved to coast down the Groton hills in winter time, 
and was captain and pilot of a big bob sled called 
"Brimstone" which would carry twelve boys at one 
time at a terrific rate of speed. They had a dancing 
school which met every week in the village hotel, 
which was then called the Groton House, but which is 
now the Hotel Goodyear. The dances were held in 
the parlor of this hotel and for the small price which 
it cost every boy to belong, he was privileged and 
expected to bring his "steady," as one's sweetheart 
was then styled, and he was also privileged to bring 
as many more girls as he chose, not exceeding eight 
in number, and these extra girls were called "fillers." 
It is remembered that Father, as being the most 
popular young man in the village and perhaps the 
most patriotic, was wont to exercise his fullest privi- 
leges in this way, much to the joy and appreciation 
of the wallflower "fillers" in a village which seemed 
to teem with many more girls than boys. His par- 
ticular fancy or steady, lived in a house which still 
exists in Groton and which I forbore to take a photo- 



30 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

graph of or to reminisce further about, because the 
lady still lives and would likely prefer to let the matter 
rest in the obscure past. She was "Esteline" to him, 
which name is long enough for this book, and for the 
lady too, who might object to seeing the rest of it in 
print, besides she has changed the rest of it since then. 

It was in Groton that Father organized and became 
the leading spirit in a debating club, which was made 
up of young men of the village. They debated upon 
popular questions and particularly upon topics which 
were being discussed as national issues, such as 
slavery, which were leading up to the great Civil 
War drama, which was soon to be enacted. It was 
then that he grew enthusiastic as the expounder of his 
hero, Napoleon, for which purpose he would have 
large maps hanging on the wall and would direct the 
attention of his listeners to them in a most interesting 
way, spellbinding them into following him through all 
of Napoleon's great campaigns, showing how the 
armies of both sides were lined up against each other 
and how they manoeuvred their forces to victory or 
defeat. Father early had the gift of language and of 
clearly and concisely expressing his thoughts, which 
fact all his early contemporaries seem to remember 
as one of his most conspicuous endowments. 

In the village store were two other young clerks, 
who probably served mostly during the hours when 
Father was at school. A rivalry between the three 
sprang up in the matter of penmanship and each 
strove to outdo the other in the excellence of his skill 



AS A YOUTH IN GROTON AND McLEAN 31 

in that direction. It is told of them that they consumed 
large stores of stationery in practicing this art and 
that when their employer was seen coming down the 
street, they would hastily stuff the stove full of the 
paper upon which they had been writing and set fire 
to it in order to destroy the evidence, not only of the 
paper used, but of the valuable time which they had 
diverted from their employer's service. Father's 
friends both early and recent, will remember the excel- 
lence of his penmanship throughout his whole life and 
they will be pleased to know how he attained perfec- 
tion in the art in the manner above related. 

It appears in Groton also, that Father was not 
religious, although reverential in the highest degree. 
The cloak of religion which his former employer wore 
as a covering, added to the recollection of the ten 
verses from the Bible that he had to learn every Sun- 
day, as well as going to "meeting" and Sunday School 
on every occasion; — these things probably all com- 
bined to draw him away from religious ideas as they 
were then taught. He had, however, all the compen- 
sating graces that a young man could have. He was 
never known to do a mean thing nor to tell a lie nor 
steal, even in such forgivable ways as invading a 
neighbor's melon patch. He could be depended upon 
as the everlasting friend of any one who had claims 
upon his friendship. One lovely lady in Groton told 
me that if she ever got into any straits in her girl- 
hood, she always depended upon Will Baker to help 
her out of them and Will Baker's fertilitv of resource 



32 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

and his ever ready wit always succeeded in saving her, 
or any one else he had under his protection, from the 
wrath of irate schoolmasters, parents or neighbors. 
I was unable to learn that Father ever did anything 
that he was ashamed of afterwards, although they say 
he cut plenty of capers of a nature not very serious ; 
that he was a practical joker and very fond of dis- 
playing his skill in this direction on anybody and 
everybody, and that he liked to win a girl away from 
another fellow, not because he wanted the girl, but to 
show the other fellow that he could do it. 

There lived in the village of Groton at this time, 
Robert C. Reynolds, who was the partner of Hyland 
Clark and therefore was Father's employer. He was 
the patron saint of the village among the boys. He 
was the one who financed their picnics, their base 
ball contests and many of their good times generally. 
It was about this time that the ice cream age began. 
Early in that important epoch, when this dainty article 
was first discovered or invented, there was a display 
of it at the County Fair, to which Father and the 
other boys and girls of course went. It was pink and 
it was white, and it was 5 cents for a whole glass 
and 3 cents for half a glass. It is said that Mr. 
Reynolds who beheld Billy Baker as he gazed upon ice 
cream for the first time in his life, with mouth awater 
and eyes agleam, perceived a strong affinity existing 
between the ice cream and Billy and accordingly slipped 
into his hand, three copper pennies. So Billy had his 
first ice cream, and never again did anything taste 



AS A YOUTH IN GROTON AND McLEAN 33 

so good to him. He took pink, topped with a dash 
of white. And again, it was Mr. Reynolds, who when 
the village school house came near being sold for 
debt, bought it in and saved it for the village until 
such a time as it could be redeemed. The boys all 
loved him and Father did as well as the rest, and 
there is no doubt but what this good man's interest 
in him tended much to mould his early career. 

Finally in the course of events, and in less than 
two years, Father outgrew Groton as he had out- 
grown Winfield, and the time came for him to move 
on to greater opportunities. His instinct drew him 
another pace to the West, this time to the village of 
McLean six miles away. Preliminary to his depart- 
ure, there were scenes, some open and some undis- 
closed, where disappointment and grief reigned 
among those whom he was to leave behind. The 
schoolboys and girls grieved at his going away, 
especially as he was going alone and so far, — six 
miles. There were little farewells for his benefit; 
some formal and some informal. In the village school, 
little speeches were made by the boys and girls and 
it was hard to restrain a sob or two. His brother 
Ralph in order to stifle his feelings upon one of these 
occasions, had stuffed his mouth full of dry bread, 
but when the pressure of grief became greater than 
the tension of his lips and cheeks, the bread could 
no longer be restrained and so flew in a shower of 
crumbs all over the floor, which incident prompted 
Father to say that he hoped "he would make in his 



34 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

future career, as many dollars as Ralph had expelled 
grains of bread from his mouth." At this point it is 
well to mention that the commercial instinct satur- 
ated Father through and through; that he had an 
ambition to make money and that he was a natural 
born trader and money maker, as demonstrated so 
well in his later business career. 

Father landed in McLean village, New York, from 
Groton in 1856, and his life there altogether com- 
prised five years. He worked for Daniel B. Marsh 
& Co., and took his meals at the house of John O. 
Marsh, sleeping in the store as usual, his employ- 
ment being in the same lines that engaged him in 
Winfield and Groton, namely clerk in the village store, 
including the postoffice job and distributing the village 
mail, but it is said he never read the post cards the 
way country postmistresses usually do. He was too 
busy and too honorable. McLean is a little village 
of about 150 now, sleeping among the hills of Central 
New York, figuratively and in reality, in a most beau- 
tiful natural environment. It probably had more 
people in it then, than now, for the coming of the 
railroad there in later years did not help it at all, but 
rather diverted business from it to the larger towns. 
Although he went to a smaller place, he went to 
larger opportunities, for the country around traded in 
McLean more often and upon a larger scale than in 
other places, and "Marsh's store" was the principal 
emporium of that part of the State. Father kept 
books there and sold beans, spruce gum, and cheese- 



" 


m ih , 


afte^ 










^f^fy'i- Wf^fli 


,. -*"* JT£ 


1 


Si 











MlLLPOND AND SWIMMING POOL AT McLEAN. 



wBm ^K^K'Js^Bt . ilf«^ <^^Kfc? 1 


* * '"--jt i ' ' •. ,■"'•":■-"*. 

1 : 1 ■ 


iiOfif i 1 j 









Residence of Mr. Marsh, at McLean. 



AS A YOUTH IN GROTON AND McLEAN 35 

cloth, bolts, plows and pickles the same as in the other 
places, and was an expert on all of these commodities. 
Here he outgrew "Billy" and became "Bill." 

His power as a debator and as an orator in embryo 
became here more rounded out than in the other 
places. The village store in McLean was in every 
sense the club of the village. Store kept open until nine 
or ten o'clock at night and the villagers always rounded 
up there at mail time and for the purpose of discuss- 
ing slavery and war topics and all the news generally. 
They would sit on the top of vinegar kegs and sugar 
barrels and on the corners of the counter and listen 
to each other's views, and Bill Baker, as master of 
ceremonies, made the place lively with his opinions 
and theories, positive then as ever afterwards, and 
he was looked upon as the one best calculated to 
mould public opinion locally and to reflect the mean- 
ing of events transpiring in the country at large. 
He had a debating society here and also discoursed 
upon Napoleon as he had done before, believing in 
him as the best exponent of popular liberty. The 
debating club met once in two weeks at the school 
house. He proclaimed himself in this village as a 
Republican in politics in 1858, which was his first 
pronouncement of a political faith, in which he was 
ardent and active, and he continued through his life 
as a Republican in politics, until Grover Cleveland 
appeared as a candidate for President. He became 
very popular with the old people in McLean. He 
was quick witted, quick at repartee, and was the 



36 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

brightest there. He was intensely earnest in his work 
and in everything else including play. For his ser- 
vices in the store at McLean he received $50.00 per 
year, but he also got his board and washing, although 
he had to provide his clothes independently. In the 
loft of the store, one may still see where he carved 
"Wm. T. Baker" on the back wall. 

In the country about McLean are maple tree 
groves, and the making of maple sugar was one of 
the industries. They used to have sugar grove pic- 
nics and there were no picnics in those days in that 
part of the world that Bill Baker did not go to. They 
used to tap the sugar trees and lap the raw sap as it 
came percolating through the bark, for it was very 
inviting to the taste. One's capacity for this kind of 
diet comes to a sudden limit, and I remember Father 
telling stories of the sugar camps and how he and the 
other boys and girls used to eat sugar sap until they 
got sick, and then they would eat cucumber pickles, 
which acted as an antidote and thus put them in shape 
to go at the sugar sap again, which operation would 
be repeated until the sap gave out or the pickles did, 
or until night came, or some other cause prevented a 
continuance of the operation. Father had time to play 
as well as work, and he was as earnest in his play as 
he was in his work. He was especially fond of base- 
ball, for the reason that being light of foot he was a 
splendid runner in making the bases and securing 
home runs. Being a sprinter stood him in good stead 
in this game. He always liked the game even in later 



AS A YOUTH IN GROTON AND McLEAN 37 

life, and used to attend many of them with me when 
I was a boy. 

In my rural pilgrimage following Father's trail 
from one village to another, and in the villages, I cov- 
ered McLean as well, — I rambled about wherever I 
thought he rambled. I went to the Marsh home where 
he boarded and to the store where he clerked, stood 
behind the same counter that he did, and for five 
minutes was as ready as he was to sell goods, but it 
was a dull day and no customers came. I strolled up 
the road by the creek to ask a man ninety years old who 
had always lived there, what he knew about a boy named 
Bill Baker who used to live there, but he didn't know 
anything on the subject, for the poor old man lived 
only in the present, with the end of it all just down 
the way in the future. So then I took a snapshot of 
the pond by the grist mill, made by a dam in the 
creek where the boys used to swim and where they 
still do. 

In McLean, Father took sick and nearly died with 
typhoid fever. There seemed little likelihood of his 
living to get well again, but he did after a long and 
lingering siege of it, and it was due largely to the 
tender nursing of a young woman to whom he was 
devoted and who was in turn to him, that he finally 
got well. This illness left him partially deaf and 
he ever afterwards so remained. It is not necessary 
to mention the name of the young woman that I have 
just referred to or to describe her except to say that 
she was an attractive "schoolmarm" and that she is 



38 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

still living in another part of the same State, having 
married another and raised a family of her own. To 
her I am grateful for a picture of my father as he 
appeared at the age of nineteen. This affair is said 
to have been of considerable time standing and very 
serious with both parties, but there finally came a mis- 
understanding, after which they ceased to "keep com- 
pany," so that I looked elsewhere for a mother and 
in time really did get a "schoolmarm" for one. It 
is possible that this love affair had something to do 
with Father's finally leaving McLean for good, for 
undoubtedly he would be as intensely serious in love 
as he would be in business. 

How could he have lived in this little place for five 
years, through the long cold snowbound winters and 
the hot summers? I wondered at it when I looked 
about the store. He doubtless wondered at it too 
whenever he lifted his head high enough to see how 
the world was moving on, how great the country was 
becoming, and how big cities and towns were spring- 
ing up throughout the great unbounded West. He 
was getting to be a man and he was all aglow with 
an ambition to strike out for new fields. He grew 
into the powers of young manhood and with it came 
a spirit of great unrest. The world seemed to beckon to 
him to come on and match himself against all men. He 
saw that he was already all he could expect to be if he 
remained — he felt that boundless opportunity stood 
before him if he went. He had the courage, the 
strength, the ability and the indomitable spirit neces- 







< § 



> 



AS A YOUTH IN GROTON AND McLEAN 39 

sary for success. He had a good name and no money. 
He was fired with an ambition often expressed to 
make his mark in the world. He was filled with the 
highest hopes and he had fears of nothing. His whole 
nature was afire with the spirit of adventure, conquest 
and independence. Thus appointed, was he the one to 
stay in McLean ? Not he, — not in a thousand years ! 
Leave there he would, and make his fortune in the 
far West, and the time to do it was now, and not 
tomorrow. 

He talked much with the boys in the village, trying 
to get some of them to go out West with him and seek 
their fortunes with him, showing them how the oppor- 
tunities in the village were few and limited and that 
it was not a place to tie to if one wanted to expand 
and grow with the progress of things in the world at 
large. There seems to have been no one with nerve 
or bravery enough to wish to follow him out into the 
world, but he went nevertheless — alone, while the 
others stayed and watched his star rise in the West 
as he came to the threshhold of the great destiny 
which the future had in store for him, while theirs 
stood still over McLean. 

About this time the gold discoveries in the Rocky 
Mountains caused a frenzy of excitement throughout 
the land. It stampeded Father just at the time he 
wanted to be stampeded. He saw the roadway of his 
future paved with gold and glory. Westward the 
course of Empire was going and in that procession 
he felt he belonged. He rose to the occasion in the 



40 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

full stature of his life and met the crisis before him. 
He shook off the mantle of McLean, borrowed forty- 
dollars from his employer and struck out for the great 
wide West. The boy of Winfield, Groton and Mc- 
Lean had ceased to be; it was a man and every inch 
a man, that then stepped foot into the young town of 
Chicago in 1861, stranded, en route to the gold fields 
of the Rocky Mountains. 




1860— Aged 19. 



1868— Aged 27 




1878— Aged 37. 1893— Aged 52. 

William Taylor Baker. 



"W 



Chapter III 

CAREER IN CHICAGO 

1861-1903 

ILLIAM T. BAKER, bookkeeper, Hinck- 
ley & Handy, 24 Washington/' 

The above is what one will read in the 
city directory of Chicago for the year 1862, and that 
tells the story of his beginning there and for a while 
at least. When he landed at the depot in Chicago it was 
night and he had with him his full stock in trade, viz., 
his grip, $4.00 and himself, together with the inspira- 
tion he had read of George Washington having for his 
guide, "I hope I shall always possess firmness enough 
to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all 
titles, the character of an 'Honest Man/ " He was a 
stranger and was tired out and had never been in 
so big a place before, so he felt justified in hiring a 
hack to go to a hotel which some one on the train 
had recommended to him as being reasonable and 
decent. The hackman "knew where it was all right" 
and drove him a long way around several squares in 
the city and finally put him down at the place to which 
he had been directed to go. Father then had $1.50 
less in money, but he went to bed that night and 
dreamed of the future and all that he hoped it had in 
store for him, and when he awoke he looked out the 



42 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

window upon the city. In front of him and only 
across the street stood the depot where he had gotten 
off the train the night before, and then he felt as green 
as he had doubtless appeared to the hackman. And 
this was his beginning in Chicago in the year 1861. 
Chicago at that time was a husky young town of 
120,000 people and had had for ten years the most 
rapid growth of any previous period in its history, 
or in fact, of any subsequent period. Only ten years 
before, in 185 1, it had not more than 30,000 people, 
and everybody is familiar with the well known picture 
of Chicago in 1833 when it was merely a trading post 
where the Indians came to barter their skins and other 
merchandise to the white people. The town was then 
composed of a small stockade called Ft. Dearborn, a 
store and a dwelling; and the Chicago River was 
merely a winding creek or rivulet which could hardly 
accommodate a craft any larger than an Indian canoe. 
The Minneways, a tribe of Indians, inhabited this sec- 
tion of the land, and they called the post "Checagau," 
which in their language meant "wild onion." Of 
course the town growing as it had been doing since 
that primitive time and drawing people as it was then 
doing from all sections of the country, gave it a wide 
advertisement, and resulted in its being talked about 
and discussed just as is now the case of Seattle. 
Chicago then of course, became the Mecca of am- 
bitious and adventurous spirits, and it was that kind 
of people who laid the foundation for the metropolis 
which the future was to bring forth. The total value 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 43 

of Chicago, as Father first saw it, was only about 
$36,000,000 in real estate and personal property 
according to the then assessed valuation, and against 
this it had a debt of a little over $2,000,000. Think of 
the number of her citizens now who could buy and 
pay for the whole city as it was then, and still have 
something left. Even a man of frugal means could 
have bought the whole city a few years before the time 
of Father's coming, for it will be recalled how Mr. 
Kinzie the first American settler there bought all the 
north half of Chicago for the sum of $50.00, having 
taken the trade off the hands of another man who 
had made it, and who felt that he had gotten a bad 
bargain, and so worried himself sick over it until 
Kinzie came along and did him this good turn, after 
having been begged and beseeched to do so. 

In 1858 the business district of Chicago was con- 
fined to that part of the city north of Madison Street 
to the River, and from Fifth Avenue to Michigan Ave- 
nue. The rest of what is now called the Loop District 
was mainly a residential quarter, where lived the mer- 
chant princes and traders of the time. Van Buren 
Street on the South, Halsted on the West, and 
Chicago Avenue on the North were the extreme 
limits of the City. At this time local transportation 
was principally by omnibus. Street railways were just 
coming into operation on a few of the principal streets, 
and were of course operated by animal power. 

When Father'came to Chicago, most of the streets 
were dirt roads, which later they began to surface 



44 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

with gravel, and some of the streets in the business 
part were planked over, but modern paving was not 
thought of. The town had a water works, and build- 
ings commensurate with its size, but most of the 
buildings were of wood, especially in the residence dis- 
trict. John Wentworth was Mayor — 6 feet 6 inches 
tall, and that is why they called him "Long John." He 
might have been called Honest John or Fighting John, 
for he was all that such names imply; and old Chi- 
cagoans look back upon his several terms of service 
in the Mayor's chair as perhaps the most efficient in 
the city's history. 

It was the natural place for a city to grow, and 
that is why it was born there; for nobody would 
deliberately choose as the site for a future city a dis- 
mal swamp as Chicago was then. It was however 
the point where the trade with the vast and growing 
agricultural districts of the Middle West converged 
and established the commerce of the Great Lakes. 
The farmers at this time brought their wheat to town 
by wagons and unloaded it by hand into the grain 
warehouses. The wheat merchants in those days went 
out into the rural districts and met the farmers and 
traded with them, buying their wheat after actually 
seeing it grow in the fields or stored in the graneries 
on the farms. That was the wheat business then — 
quite in contrast with what it has developed into since 
and as one sees it today, when the grain kings seldom 
see their grain and only know of it by holding un- 
certain options upon it. 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 45 

It was not Chicago, however, that my father started 

out to find. His ambition, as I have already stated, 
was to dig for gold in the Rocky Mountains rather 
than to find it in the channels of business. His touch- 
ing at Chicago was an incident of his trip, and his 
staying there was an incident of the financial condition 
in which he found himself and which made it impos- 
sible for him to proceed further. So he started out 
to look the town over and see what it would do for him 
in the way of his getting a temporary living and sav- 
ing enough besides to permit him to continue on his 
journey at a later time. He remembered that he had 
in his pocket a letter to Julius Chambers from Mrs. 
Marsh of McLean, for whose husband he had worked 
in that village, and in whose home he boarded there. 
Mr. Chambers and Mrs. Marsh were related in some 
way. He did not expect to use the letter except per- 
haps to afford him a few hours acquaintance and rec- 
reation while passing through the town, but as the 
letter stated that "Billy was the best clerk Mr. Marsh 
ever had in his store," he thought he would use it and 
see if the "best clerk'' certificate for McLean would 
have any value or meaning for a place as big as 
Chicago. Undaunted, therefore, he sought out Mr. 
Chambers and told him of his purpose and ambition. 
Mr. Chambers took a real interest in him, as people 
generally did when he was first presented to them. It 
was through Mr. Chambers, therefore, that he was 
introduced to the firm of Hinckley & Handy, which 
firm ran a commission business on South Water Street 



46 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

near the river, dealing in grain and general prov- 
isions. The firm sized up the candidate for a job very 
thoroughly and carefully, and they particularly 
wanted to know if he could keep books. "O, yes, he 
could keep books all right; he had done that in the 
largest and only store in McLean," and although the 
bookkeeping there had consisted only of adding up 
the sales at the bottom of the page every day, and 
seeing if it footed with the cash in the drawer, yet he 
did not go into details as to that, but simply asserted 
his ability as a master of the art. He was therefore 
engaged on trial and told to report the next morning. 
He went out feeling very happy at getting to work 
so soon, for it made Pikes' Peak and the Rocky Moun- 
tains loom up much larger and nearer than they had 
ever done before in his contemplation of that ambi- 
tion. 

But he realized as he left the store that keeping 
books in McLean was one thing and keeping them in 
Chicago for a large commission house was another 
thing. So he hunted up a book store and purchased 
a text book on the subject of bookkeeping, which took 
nearly all the money he had left. He staid up all night 
with his book and studied it from beginning to end, so 
that when he took his position for duty the next day he 
felt himself pretty well equipped to cope with the situ- 
ation. He applied himself to this new task with the 
same earnestness that he always did to anything which 
he undertook, so that he not only was able to do the 
work, but he soon became an expert bookkeeper and 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 47 

accountant, and he invented forms and devices for 
keeping books which were particularly adapted to the 
grain trade, and which are today in vogue in the grain 
business in Chicago. He soon gave up the ambition 
to go further West as he became better acquainted 
with the people and more contented with his immedi- 
ate environment. He made friends rapidly and grew 
in the esteem and favor of his employers, and he soon 
began to feel himself a part of the bone and sinew 
of the throbbing young Chicago. 

Being an expert bookkeeper, however, even for a 
Chicago firm, which perhaps at one time might have 
been the zenith of his ambition, would not do for one 
of his calibre indefinitely. The firm which employed 
him also began to see that he was really too big for 
his job and that his sphere of usefulness should be 
expanded; so he went into the pit on the board of 
trade and became the trader for the firm while his 
salary was increased correspondingly. Then it was 
not very long, and in fact not over a year after his 
arrival, before the firm saw that they were going to lose 
him if they did not take him in and make him one of 
them as a partner, and this was done, although his 
name did not appear at the time in the firm name, 
but a "Co." was added to it, he being the "Co.," and 
the firm thereafter being styled Hinckley, Handy & Co. 
This business arrangement continued for only a year 
or so, when both Messrs. Hinckley and Handy con- 
cluded to retire from business and so withdrew from 
the firm which was therefore dissolved about the vear 



48 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

1864. My father then continued alone under the style 
of William T. Baker, and he so continued to do until 
1868, his place of business being first on South Water 
Street, and then on LaSalle Street, near Washington. 
He was twenty-seven years old at this time and is 
remembered as being well groomed, fastidious in his 
attire and fivt feet eight inches tall and about 165 
pounds in weight. In order to inspire confidence and 
lend to his appearance that dignity which perhaps a 
youthful countenance failed to give it, he began about 
this time to wear bushy sandy side whiskers and a 
moustache, which style in changing degrees he 
affected for the balance of his life. He favored the 
blond type in his complexion and the color of his 
hair and eyes. 

Being a chip off the old block — his mother — he 
was thrifty and saved his money and soon begun to 
have little investments of his own, both in the firm 
and out of it. Then in a little while he felt that he 
was getting rich enough to take care of still another 
besides himself, and his mother and sister whom he 
had been supporting. 

Now, of course, a young man, like what we know 
him to have been at that time, was not the kind to 
shut himself up from all society and good times; in 
fact if there was anything going on he was sure to 
be identified in some way or other, and so it came to 
pass that among the young ladies whom he knew and 
liked to go with, he finally met my mother, who was 
a school teacher. He had a liking for "schoolmarms." 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 49 

This affair became serious after about a year and re- 
sulted in their getting married, but I will tell about 
that event in the next chapter which I will give to 
a brief sketch of her. They went first to the Sherman 
House and afterwards to live modestly in a boarding 
house at 24 Washington Street, but like most young 
wives she wanted a home of their own, so they rented 
a small cottage on the west side, which in after times 
we used to drive by and which Father used to point 
to as the first home he had in Chicago and as the 
place where I was born. I have no idea just where 
this house was or if it is still in existence, although I 
do remember that with the raising of the grade of 
the streets of Chicago it was left about ten feet below 
the sidewalk. Later they moved into 22nd Street on 
the corner of the alley between Prairie and Indian 
Avenues, being the end house in a row of four small 
frame houses which were in after years demolished to 
give place to the residence of Mr. Byron L. Smith. 

At this time the great Civil War was beginning and 
every one's fortunes were affected in varying degrees. 
Father was fired with the patriotism and warlike 
spirit which characterized most of the young Ameri- 
cans at that time. He was bent upon shouldering a 
musket and going to the front where hostilities were 
already under way between the North and South. But 
he had a young and pleading wife who clung to him 
and tearfully besought him to remember her little self 
who did not want to be a widow, so that he stayed 
home and hired a man for $1,000 to go in his place as 



50 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

a substitute. This man turned out to be a "bounty 
jumper," as it developed later that he did not go to 
the war as agreed, although he took Father's money. 
However, there was a threatened outbreak at Camp 
Douglas, near Chicago, where many Southern pris- 
oners were held captive, so that Father volunteered 
and was sworn in for picket duty in connection with 
that encampment ; and it is told of him that in the chilly 
and spectral night he paraded up and down with a 
rifle on his shoulder ready to shoot down any bold 
Southern rebel who might dare to try to get away. 
This picket duty was all the actual active warfare in 
which he engaged for the protection of the republic, 
and how long he thus served I do not know. He how- 
ever was active with his voice, and was a ready and 
lively participant in public meetings and debates where 
the burning questions of the times were under dis- 
cussion. 

Now if the nation lost by Father's staying home 
from the war, it probably gained in another way, for 
babies began to arrive in the 22nd Street home. The 
stork roosted on the roof of that house with more 
indulgence to those inside of it, than he did to any of 
the neighbors, and so quite a little colony was formed 
as more specifically set forth in the following chapter. 
It became a little kingdom in itself, ruled by a real 
king and presided over by a fond and indulgent sun- 
shine queen, with lesser subjects varying in import- 
ance, size and temperament, who warred with each 
other or made peace according to the conditions exist- 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 51 

ing from time to time, which best served for the one 
or the other. 

In this house the children were all born except the 
first two and the last one. It was in this house that 
my brother and I received our first real and undiluted 
paternal discipline. * It came about from the fact that 
Father had indulged the family in the luxury of a new 
set of cane-seated chairs for the dining room, and in- 
deed, to us at that time such a set of chairs was a luxury. 
Then came an evil genus into the heads of my brother 
and myself, which prompted us to rise up exceptionally 
early one morning and go to the dining room, where 
with hatchet and hammer we pounded the seats out 
of every chair in the room. It was useless to attempt 
to prove an alibi, and he therefore exercised his right 
of "habeas corpus/' we being the "corpuses," and im- 
prisoned us each in a room by himself with the light 
shut off, moored to the bedpost by a clothesline for the 
space of three days, after first having been whipped 
with a horse whip. This is my candid recollection of 
that incident, but Father always claimed that we were 
only spanked and shut up for an hour. 

Thus it was that Father's children made interesting 
his domestic life, which may have added more zeal to 
his business career, — at least I shall be happy to think 
that any of our little acts of thoughtlessness may have 
spurred him on to greater efforts in his business. It 
was in this house or rather in the barn in the rear of 
it, that ten cents of Father's money appropriated for 
our Sunday school exchequer was diverted from and 



52 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

never yet has reached the said exchequer, but was con- 
verted instead into a long black cigar which gave my 
brother and me and another boy at the average age 
of ten, our first (my last) smoke, instead of being 
bored by going to Sunday school. That smoking party 
broke up before it was over or the fire out, and resulted 
in three small boys dragging themselves home, as they 
thought, to die. The mother who stooped to kiss the 
coming angels, smiled in her grief and became un- 
sympathetic, for our breaths were fragrant with the 
tell-tale tobacco. It was in this house that Father 
began to spank, and as time went on more spankees 
came in for spanks. It is hardly possible that real 
good reasons existed for such ministrations, so maybe 
it was simply a passing down to posterity that which 
undoubtedly formed in his youth — a part of his par- 
ental blessings. Doubtless the advanced guards of his 
posterity felt at the time that he was actuated solely 
by the worthy motive of getting even for what ances- 
tral discipline had showered upon him, and doubtless 
the same advanced guards then finally resolved to 
abide their time through the years to follow, when 
they too might hope to do some showering. 

As the family grew in numbers and prosperity, the 
end house of the wooden row was outgrown, and so 
we moved to 797 Michigan Avenue, which was after- 
wards numbered 2238, being the southernmost one of 
the Orphan Asylum's brick houses between 22nd and 
23rd Streets. We took up our abode at this place in 
1867, ^e new environment being to our family quite 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 53 

a coming up in the world. Father took this house 
under a ten year lease at a thousand dollars a year. 
This house had a back yard to it with a high board 
fence in the rear, which served as a barricade between 
our premises and the playground of the Orphan 
Asylum children. There were knot holes in this fence, 
which we boys used as loop holes when we engaged in 
warfare with the orphans on the other side. We 
would shoot pebbles through at them with sling shots 
and often seriously damaged them, and they would 
throw heavy missiles back, which often went over 
the top of the fence and through the rear windows of 
our house, which would result in peace being arranged 
between our parents and the managers of the Orphan 
Asylum, by the terms of which our parents usually 
had to pay a financial forfeit or indemnity, taking the 
same out of our several hides. While our business 
was thus going on through the fence and over it, 
Father was conducting his with equal energy, 
although in a more peaceful way down town. Father 
was well on the way to fortune and we children were 
in the halcyon days of our childhood joys, when on 
September 17th, 1873 a great sorrow came to our 
household, for our young mother was killed in a run- 
away. I will tell more of this in the chapter I will 
write about her. The sunshine which was thus 
clouded from my father's life probably caused him 
to plunge more deeply into business and lend austerity 
and sternness to his character. It in a way drew him 
from his children, whose proper bringing up he then 



54 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

delegated to our mother's sister, Mrs. Mary Smith, 
a widow, who then came and presided over the home. 
Among his business acquaintances at this time were 
two other young men — Mr. Walter F. Cobb and 
Charles A. Knight, who in a partnership relation be- 
tween themselves had been operating a business simi- 
lar to Father's, with more or less success. The clients 
of Messrs. Knight and Cobb and those of my father 
and several other commission houses had bought a 
very considerable amount of corn about this time, both 
seller September and buyer October, and foolishly 
enough as it afterwards proved, these several interests 
combined together to force grain to a higher price level. 
The result of this attempted corner proved very dis- 
astrous to the trade generally, as it also did to all the 
parties interested, as it caused the failure of six or 
seven Board of Trade houses. When the horizon 
cleared after this occurrence, my father found that 
he must seek for a new line of customers and more 
capital, as he was left with only moderate means ; and 
Mr. Cobb and Mr. Knight found themselves in the 
same situation. As a result of this misfortune the 
three young men were brought closer together, with 
the result that after several conferences they estab- 
lished a new firm under the style of Knight, Baker 
& Co., in which firm Mr. Cobb also joined. This firm 
began business in 1869 with offices opposite the Board 
of Trade in La Salle Street. Under the partnership 
arrangement it became the duty of Mr. Knight and 
my father to take turns in travelling to look up cus- 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 55 

tomers and attending to the business on the Board of 
Trade, while Mr. Cobb had charge of the finances and 
general business of the office. Theirs was essentially 
a grain shipping business, it being their purpose to 
develop it principally along that line and to the great- 
est extent possible, in the ambition of making their 
firm the strongest and most important one in the busi- 
ness. The business, however, consisted mostly in ship- 
ping grain to the New England States by the different 
railway systems — called through lines — and they also 
did a moderate business via the Lakes and the Erie 
Canal, which required very close watching as very 
keen competition had to be met. The combined 
energies of the three partners developed the business 
rapidly and the firm soon became one of the most 
prosperous. 

Then when the future was beginning to look the 
brightest, the great Chicago fire came along, begin- 
ning October 8, 1871, and for two days devastated 
the most valuable portion of the city, destroying al- 
most entirely the business section, and driving thou- 
sands of people from their homes. History had re- 
corded no greater conflagration than this. In the 
short time that the flames were at work, 3^ square 
miles in area were devastated and $187,000,000 of 
property went up in smoke, and over 300 people lost 
their lives. That which had been a magnificent, sub- 
stantial and prosperous city of forty-seven years' 
building, was reduced in a few hours to a heap of 
smouldering ruins. Nothing was left but ashes and 



56 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

debris to show where the young metropolis only two 
days before had stood. This catastrophe of course, 
destroyed the business of my father's firm, although 
it caused them comparatively little property loss for 
the reason that their holdings of grain had been 
largely stored in elevators which had not been reached 
by the fire, and they were fortunate as well in collect- 
ing a good percentage of insurance on grain destroyed. 
Nothing daunted, however, they took heart again in 
common with the prevailing spirit of the stricken citi- 
zens, and in a few days they opened up a temporary 
office in the basement of our house at 797 Michigan 
Avenue, about two miles from the former business 
centre. 

There was no business centre immediately follow- 
ing the fire and the people conducted their business in 
their homes, — if they had not been destroyed by the 
fire, or in tents or board sheds constructed for the pur- 
pose in private yards or vacant lots scattered about 
the city. The temporary office at home was soon 
abandoned and a new location secured in a loft on 
Canal Street on the west bank of the river, near where 
the Board of Trade was temporarily holding its busi- 
ness sessions. Soon afterwards the Board of Trade 
constructed a temporary edifice which was known as 
the "Wigwam," and which occupied Washington 
Street from Market Street to the river. The office 
next in order occupied by the firm was a space about 
15 x 30 feet in this wigwam. This location also was 
temporary, and later, after the city had begun to re- 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 57 

build, they moved down Washington Street to a loca- 
tion between La Salle and Wells Streets. Although 
they again begun to do fairly well, as their business 
was strictly brokerage and commission, the same 
could not be said of their clients, and this fact resulted 
in Mr. Knight becoming very discouraged at the busi- 
ness outlook, so that he withdrew from the firm in 
1872, taking with him the bulk of the capital. Mr. 
Cobb and my father thereupon with a capital of not 
over $10,000 between the two of them, branched out 
once more under the firm name of Wm. T. Baker & 
Co., and took a fine large suite of offices at 84 and 86 
La Salle Street. 

At this location they displayed a good front, spend- 
ing a large sum of money in elaborate office furniture 
and fittings, together with an arrangement of private 
offices, with the idea that this display would give the 
impression of prosperity. In undoubtedly did give 
that impression and helped them to build up a valuable 
line of customers. With much zeal, nerve and indus- 
try, Father then started out to get a share of the busi- 
ness of some of the largest houses in New York, Phila- 
delphia and Boston, and he succeeded in this purpose 
with the result that the business from that time grew 
very rapidly. Jesse Hoyt & Co. and David Dows 
& Co. of New York handled their business for them 
at the eastern end. In 1877 Mn Cobb, in behalf 
of the firm, went abroad and established connections 
in Europe, with the result that in a very short time 
the firm became large exporters of grain on through 



58 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

bills of lading, the grain being transferred at the sea- 
board from cars to ocean going vessels. Dewar and 
Webb of London, an extensive grain house of that 
city, were their chief correspondents abroad. The 
firm of Wm. T. Baker & Co. now came into the zenith 
of its career and developed into one of the largest 
grain shipping houses in the world. 

Each success stimulated Father to greater ambi- 
tions and the broadening of the scope of his com- 
mercial activities, setting higher each time the goal 
to which they aspired. He began to think that the 
firm should have a navy of its own to ply upon the 
Great Lakes and engage in the carrying trade, not only 
for their own shipments, but for independent ship- 
ments as well. This idea resulted in the building of the 
schooner Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. At that time 
she was the largest carrier upon the Great Lakes, her 
capacity being 50,000 bushels of corn. While they 
were casting about for a name for the schooner which 
was then on the ways, my father happened to be in 
attendance at the Republican National Convention, 
which was then being held in Chicago, and on that 
day Rutherford B. Hayes was nominated for the 
Presidency of the United States. When he returned 
to the office he said, "I have a name for the schooner. 
We will name her after the luckiest man in the coun- 
try." She was accordingly so named, and Father took 
one of my brothers and myself to the christening when 
she was launched near Detroit. This schooner not 
only served the purpose of carrier for the convenience 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 59 

of the firm and its clients, but served the profitable 
purpose at times of a regulator of freight rates out 
of Chicago, for Father undoubtedly had this feature 
in mind when he conceived the idea of building the 
ship. When it happened that the firm had no cargo 
of their own for the Hayes, she was immediately let 
out to other shippers and the rates she made for the 
service did much towards establishing reasonable 
charges by other vessel owners. Often too, they used 
the Hayes in this way to lower rates, of which they 
availed themselves by chartering other vessels for 
their own business. The schooner Hayes was a re- 
markable vessel in that she had a larger capacity than 
any vessel of her dimensions, and she was endowed 
with unusual seaworthiness, however, she now lies 
at the bottom of the lakes, having foundered as the 
result of a collision several years after the firm ceased 
to own her. 

As a companion to the Hayes, Baker & Co. pur- 
chased the powerful steamer Antelope with the idea 
of having her tow the Hayes in tandem with other 
vessels for the purpose of making better time between 
Chicago and Buffalo than could be insured from sail- 
ing independently and depending upon the winds 
alone. The Antelope carried considerable cargo, as 
well as serving in the towing capacity, but this experi- 
ment did not prove successful so that the steamer was 
sold some time after. 

The business of the firm grew and continued more 
and more prosperous. At one time they had borrowed 



60 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

in connection with this business half of the deposits 
of the First National Bank of Chicago. In other 
words their loans amounted to about $3,000,000 at 
3 per cent. The bank then was, of course, much smaller 
than at the present time. Naturally they had de- 
veloped a very high order of credit and were held in 
great esteem and confidence by the banks generally 
and the other Board of Trade firms. 

It was about this time that James R. Keene owned 
practically all the wheat in Chicago and the lard as 
well, while Baker & Co. owned most of the corn. Mr. 
Keene and associates had formed a combination to 
control the wheat market and Mr. Keene was manipu- 
lating it. J. K. Fisher & Co. who represented part of 
the Keene interests in Chicago, had bought and held 
for him about three million bushels of wheat, when 
one morning Mr. A. J. Fisher received a telephone 
message at the Chicago Club saying that an important 
night dispatch had been received at his office which 
said "Sell all wheat you can" (above a certain price), 
and the dispatch was signed "Keene." Mr. Fisher 
hurried to the Board of Trade and began disposing 
of the wheat as rapidly as he could, at the same time 
telegraphing Mr. Keene of the amounts as fast as he 
sold. My father happened to be in Mr. Keene's office 
at the time in New York, and of course they were 
much perplexed and disturbed by Mr. Fisher's dis- 
patches, as they knew that something was wrong and 
that probably Mr. Fisher was acting under instruc- 
tions contained in a bogus telegram. As a check upon 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 61 

Fisher's operations, therefore, my father's firm, who 
were also large holders of wheat bought for Keene, 
under his telegraphic instructions immediately began 
buying in wheat under authority from Mr. Keene to 
replace that which had been sold, and Fisher did not 
find out until after he had sold all of Keene's holdings 
that he had really acted without his orders. Fisher, 
as soon as he knew that he had been duped, immedi- 
ately went to Mr. Cobb as the only person in Chicago 
with whom to trust with his secret, knowing that he 
had full information as to what he had done, and he 
therefore gave Baker & Co. an order to buy back all 
the wheat which he had sold — 3,000,000 bushels — and 
this was done the next day by Baker & Co. at a slight 
profit over the sales. This bogus dispatch episode 
was one of the things that will always be remembered 
in connection with Board of Trade history, and the 
result of it was that Fathers' firm thereafter handled 
all the Keene business. 

In 1 88 1 the firm of William T. Baker & Co. took 
a large office in the corner of the new Chamber of 
Commerce Building at the corner of La Salle Street 
and Washington Street, and in addition to their estab- 
lished grain business, they opened up a department for 
buying and selling stocks and bonds on the New York 
Stock Exchange. In this connection the firm inaugu- 
rated a private wire system between New York and 
Chicago, they being one of the first to attempt such a 
novel and expensive innovation. The wire cost $25,- 
000 a year under a lease from the Western Union 



62 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

Telegraph Company, to which had to be added the 
expense of the operator at both ends of the line. They 
established their business and private wire connection 
in New York for their new department with McGinnis 
Bros. & Fearing, who afterwards failed, causing them 
a loss of $100,000. The next New York connec- 
tion was Jameson, Smith & Cotting, which firm after- 
wards became J. D. Smith & Co., and this business 
relation was kept up as long as the business was con- 
tinued, and it proved a profitable one. It is said how- 
ever, that Father had no liking for the stock business 
and much preferred the grain trade. As soon as the 
Board of Trade moved to its present location at the 
head of La Salle Street, Baker & Co. took the large 
banking office in the Counselman Building where they 
remained until the spring of 1888. Mr. Cobb in this 
year withdrew from the firm, thus leaving Father alone 
in the business, which continued under the style of 
William T. Baker & Co. as previously. The relations 
of the two partners during their twenty years of 
association were always of the pleasantest, each hav- 
ing the entire respect and confidence and friendship of 
the other, and Mr. Cobb's retirement which was actu- 
ated by his desire to cease the activities and worries of 
a business career and to enjoy life quietly, was regret- 
fully yielded to by his associate. At the time of Mr. 
Cobb's retirement Father moved his business head- 
quarters to the Phoenix Building, now the Western 
Union Telegraph Company Building. This was in 
1888. He continued the business there until 1893, 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 63 

when he was elected President of the World's Fair 
and he thereupon retired from business and closed up 
the affairs of his firm. 

He suffered the usual ups and downs which are 
apt to be met with in that line of business. The firm 
began with practically nothing, and their combined 
assets varying from time to time, never exceeded $i,- 
000,000, the respective interests of my father and Mr. 
Cobb being two-thirds and one-third. Father was 
almost invariably a bull in the market, and the persist- 
ency which characterized him in other things mani- 
fested itself most strongly in this regard. He was 
consistent as well as persistent. His operations were 
always based upon a careful study of crop conditions 
and other conditions which affected the price move- 
ments. At one time he felt that grain was a good buy 
at a given price and he bought largely. It crept up 
gradually ten cents higher per bushel, but it had not 
reached the mark he had set for it. It slumped and 
went back again below the original purchase price, 
and still he held to it. It crept up again, and again 
exceeded ten cents over the purchase price, and again 
it slumped to a lower level than before, and still he 
held on. A third time the price stiffened and finally 
reached the high mark that he had figured out for it, 
when he let go and made the profit he had aimed at. 

He never permitted himself to be under obligations 
to railroad companies, and never accepted proffered 
passes, but preferred rather to pay his freight bills 
as any one less favored would have to do. His credit 



64 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

always stood the hardest test that could be put upon 
it, and as an example of this I will cite the incident of 
the Cincinnati corner some twenty-five years ago, 
which Mr. E. L. Harper, President of a bank of that 
city had secretly attempted to run but which failed 
disastrously, and resulted in his going to the peni- 
tentiary for stealing the money to run the corner. 
The collapse of the corner resulted in the failure of 
Harpers' bank and of several large firms, which 
brought on a panic, so that Baker & Co. were being 
sharply called upon for additional margins in great 
amounts to protect their trades. As a result of this it 
became apparent to Father and Mr. Cobb that they 
would go under if they were not provided with some- 
thing like half a million dollars before the following 
day. He went to Mr. Hutchinson of the Corn Ex- 
change Bank and explained the situation and the 
seriousness of it, stating that they had to have that 
much money to keep them in business and preserve 
their credit. He was asked for a statement of the 
firm's affairs. He answered, "It would take three 
days to prepare a statement and the relief is needed 
now. I can only tell you that / know that we are 
solvent and can soon pay the loan." The result was 
that the directors of the bank were called together 
quickly to act in this emergency. The Executive Com- 
mittee were Mr. Sidney Kent, Mr. B. P. Hutchinson, 
familiarly known as "Old Hutch," and Charles L. 
Hutchinson. "Old Hutch" was determined to break 
Father and so opposed the loan, but it was carried by 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 65 

the favorable vote of the other two, so that over a 
half million dollars was passed out the next day on 
their overdrawn account, and with not even the giv- 
ing of a promissory note. For those days, this was a 
large operation, and as such was an endorsement not 
only of Father's integrity and honor, but of his judg- 
ment as well, and the fact that the obligation was half 
paid back in thirty days and fully paid back in sixty 
days, vindicated the confidence which the bank had 
in him. 

The foregoing recital tells briefly the business 
career of my father as it proceeded through the sev- 
eral firms with which he was identified in doing busi- 
ness upon the Board of Trade. He, however, did not 
confine his energies entirely to the steering of his 
business firm, but in his personal capacity was promi- 
nent and indefatigable in many directions. He was 
generally in the forefront of movements calculated 
for the public good. He was one of the original 
twenty-eight charter members who founded and 
organized the Commercial Club of Chicago in 1887, 
a body of the strongest and most select men, limited 
in number to sixty, which met monthly at dinner and 
discussed local and national topics. It also undertook 
important works and worthy charities, founding 
among other things the Chicago Manual Training 
School. He was a member of the first executive com- 
mittee of the club, an honor conferred upon him many 
times since, and he was treasurer of the club in 1892, 
Vice-President in 1893, and President of it in 1894. 



66 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

He was devoted to the interests of this organization 
and was never absent from its monthly meetings ex- 
cept through illness or absence from the city. There 
was seldom a topic of interest under discussion by the 
club upon which he did not have pronounced ideas 
and was therefore a frequent speaker. The club keeps 
no records of the speeches of its members, as only 
those of the invited guests are reported, but the 
minutes of the club show that he addressed it upon 
many topics, the most important of which were : 

A Review of the World's Fair, Nov. 25, 1893. 

Interstate Commerce Law, Feb. 27, 1894. 

Our Currency, Oct. 27, 1894. 

Chicago's Municipal Finances, Dec. 28, 1895. 

Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Dec. 27, 1902. 

He was also the principal speaker at a compli- 
mentary dinner given to his life long friend, the Hon- 
orable Lyman J. Gage, February 11, 1897. 

Father was also a member of the Chicago Club and 
the Iroquois Club, and also of the Cobden Club of 
England. He was one of the original directors of 
the National Biscuit Co. and continued as one of its 
most influential directors until the time of his death. 
Likewise he was a director of the American Radiator 
Co. He was also an influential director of the Union 
National Bank. He was one of the original sub- 
scribers to the Chicago Auditorium and active upon 
its directory. He was a life member of the Appollo 
Commandery of the Knight Templars, in which order 
he attained the 32nd degree. He was an original 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 67 

member of and one of the principal pillars of the Art 
Institute of Chicago, and a member and director of the 
Chicago Board of Trade. He was one of the most 
efficient directors of the World's Columbian Exposi- 
tion and also its President, and he also joined actively 
with me in the development of the water power of 
Snoqualmie Falls and the White River in the State of 
Washington, for supplying the cities of Puget Sound 
with electric light and power, which ranks among the 
few most successful and notable achievements among 
the world's best hydro-electric power developments. 
These last four mentioned subjects should have more 
than passing notice, and I will, therefore, give them 
separate chapters in this history. 

Father always took an active and thoughtful inter- 
est in politics as a theme in which he felt that as a 
public duty every patriotic citizen should study and 
have clear cut ideas upon. He had no personal ambi- 
tions in this direction, although he was prominent at 
all times when national crises were the subject of dis- 
cussion. From his first vote and until the year when 
Mr. James G. Blaine became a candidate for Presi- 
dent he was always a Republican, but in that year he 
foreswore his allegiance to the Republican party, re- 
pudiated its candidate and became the earnest cham- 
pion of Mr. Grover Cleveland. He made speeches in 
that campaign, some of which were printed and dis- 
tributed with much effect by the Democratic National 
Committee. He was the chairman of the "Illinois 
Mugwump" Committee. He continued as a Democrat 



68 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

from that time until the Republicans began to absorb 
their best platform principles from the Democratic 
party, and until the Democratic party itself began to 
disavow its own principles, and put forward Mr. 
Bryan as their expression of belief. Then Father 
came back in the Republican fold again and there re- 
mained for the remainder of his life. He was ardent 
for free trade and believed that tariff reform would 
cure the great trust evils. 

He was a conspicuous figure at the time of the 
"Debs Rebellion/' in which connection his life at one 
time was in great danger. He had been on a visit to 
my home in Seattle with his invalid wife and daughter, 
and it happened that the great Pullman strike broke 
out while he was returning to Chicago. At the com- 
mand of Debs who was President of the American 
Railway Union, every train in the United States haul- 
ing Pullman coaches was stopped upon a given day 
and hour. This found Father at Livingstone, Mon- 
tana, where his train was stalled for nearly two weeks 
at the instance of the strikers. This situation resulted 
in not only serious inconvenience to the passengers, 
but positive distress in the lack of food and comfort, 
as a result of which Father was designated spokesman 
of the passengers for the purpose of attempting peace- 
ful negotiations with the strikers for the purpose of 
allowing them to proceed upon their journeys to 
their homes. He addressed them in a body at Liv- 
ingstone, but got no sympathetic ear, as they were 
acting in strict obedience to the edict of their 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 69 

leader Debs, whose watchword to his followers 
during that insurrection was "Save your money 
and buy a gun!" Finally it became known that 
Father was a director of the Pullman Car Company, 
which excited the wrath of the local strikers to the 
extent that a conspiracy was set on foot among them 
to assassinate him. This danger he escaped, however, 
by departing quietly one night with his invalid wife 
and daughter, travelling in a mountain buckboard 
over more than one hundred miles of almost impass- 
able mountain roads to a distant station on the Great 
Northern Railroad, where traffic had not been inter- 
rupted for the reason that that road was immune from 
the tyranny of Debs because of not operating Pullman 
rolling stock. When Debs was tried for treason and 
conspiracy, my father was invited to be the foreman 
of the jury which tried him, but preferred to be the 
star witness against him instead, which resulted in 
the conviction and imprisonment of Debs. The trial 
would have meant the hanging of Debs for murder 
had there been any fatalities in connection with the 
strike. 

After his retirement from active business as a 
Board of Trade firm, Father had a private office 
in the Women's Temple Building which he retained 
until the time of his death. He was not the 
character of man to entirely cease his activities, and he 
was, therefore, generally present at the Board of 
Trade sessions, but made his trades through other 
brokerage firms. 



70 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

During the spring and summer of 1897 Joe Leiter 
engineered his world famous corner in wheat, which 
brought the price up to over a dollar and made the 
farmers very prosperous and happy. Father was 
happy too, for dollar wheat was what he was 
looking for, and therefore being in the same situation 
and frame of mind as the farmer, he was in that year 
in connection with Armour, Alerton and Leiter cari- 
catured as a prosperous and contented farmer in a 
cartoon in one of the daily papers which is reproduced 
herewith. The Leiter corner failed and Joe Leiter went 
under as a result of it, but there are a great many 
people today who raised wheat in that year who still 
bless his memory for his good intentions and what he 
did for them, and Father himself, undoubtedly had a 
kindly feeling for the part which young Leiter took 
in the history of wheat, and I have myself, like- 
wise, for it undoubtedly had something to do with 
my own achievement in the harnessing of Snoqualmie 
Falls. 

Father's fortune at this time when he was fifty-six 
years old was probably about two-thirds of a million 
dollars, and at no time before or since was it likely 
any greater until the successful issue of the Snoqualmie 
and White River power developments in the West 
resulted in the practical trebling of his own fortune 
as well as adding equally to mine. He never set his 
mind on the swollen fortune idea, caring more as to 
the method of attaining an end, rather than the attain- 
ment of the end itself. He was one of the ablest, 



72 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

boldest and most successful operators in the history 
of the Board of Trade. He studied speculation as an 
exact science, founded upon the laws of supply and 
demand, in accordance with the doctrine laid down by 
John Stuart Mill, "When speculation in a commodity 
proves profitable it is because in the interval between 
buying and reselling the price raises from some cause 
independent of the speculators, their only connection 
with it consisting in having foreseen it." As a far- 
sighted speculator he also saw how in the lapse of an 
interval of time, prices might shrink instead of rise, 
which situation he directed likewise to his own advant- 
age. As a successful speculator he was a student of all 
things and conditions which go to establish the law of 
supply and demand. There was not a day in the year that 
he did not know the crop conditions as they existed in 
all countries that supply the grain of the world. In 
this connection he studied weather conditions, trans- 
portation facilities, the financial situation and legis- 
lation. In this way he was in the forefront in market 
movements and was generally right, and because of 
his known shrewdness and close study of all condi- 
tions which established prices he had a large follow- 
ing of traders who relied upon his judgment in figur- 
ing out future market conditions as a basis for their 
own operations. He looked upon speculation as the life 
of business, whether it be trading in grain or groceries 
or metals, or anything else. Like him, all business 
men are speculators for the reason that they make or 
buy a commodity in the anticipation of being able to 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 73 

sell it at a profit. A good business man is one who is 
a good speculator. It is speculation which electrifies 
the intelligence carrying agencies of the world, so 
that every man in his office or in his farmhouse knows 
daily the changing commercial conditions throughout 
the world, and the consequent fluctuation in prices of 
commodities in which he is interested directly or indi- 
rectly. It becomes the regulator of proper values and 
it stimulates commercial and industrial activities. It 
becomes the pathfinder through all countries and 
markets for the common good, disseminating its in- 
telligence to all alike. It is unselfish and it leads the 
way to the best civilization. This is the view he took 
of it as a student, as an economist, and as a practical 
and enlightened business man. His operations as a 
speculator were not confined to the commodities of 
the Board of Trade or the Stock Exchange. He had 
many of the attributes of the hardy pioneer and so 
helped to blaze the trail to many a new country. In 
this way he became indentified with early irrigation 
projects in California, with an extensive railroad pro- 
ject in South America, with coal mining and water 
power developments in the State of Washington, with 
copper mining in the West, and with street car pro- 
jects in St. Louis. 

He was a strict adherent to principle in his busi- 
ness afTairs even though he knew it would cost him 
money to be so. As illustrating this I will cite the 
incident of his being one of a syndicate of several 
operators including "Old Hutch" which was carrying 



74 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

a large line of grain and waiting for an advance 
under a mutual covenant to sell only in concert with 
each other. The appreciation in value of the com- 
modity carried, soon showed a handsome profit on 
paper, and "Old Hutch" without regard to his prom- 
ises to the others began to let go. Others of the syn- 
dicate followed in line one by one and did the same, 
which resulted in the price shrinking point by point. 
Nevertheless Father held himself true to his word, 
and so did not dispose of his interest until he was the 
last one left, and until the price had dropped in conse- 
quence of the selling movement to a level which en- 
tirely deprived him of any profit. 

More might be said of his business career if space 
permitted. Let me instead, however, return for a 
moment to his private life and to the time when the 
family moved to their first Michigan Avenue resi- 
dence. Father at that time was a master of the shot- 
gun and very frequently went duck hunting upon the 
preserves of the Tollaston Gun Club some distance 
from Chicago, of which club he was a member. He 
was instinctively a good shot and brought home many 
a trophy of the sport. He was also fond of horses 
and drove to and from his business behind one of the 
fastest trotters in the city, and he kept fine carriage 
horses and equipages for the use of the family as well. 

Father remained a widower until 1879 when he 
married Mrs. Anna Franklin (Phipps) Morgan of 
Troy, New York, the widow of Mr. Azro B. Morgan, 
whom he had met in the course of his business oper- 




The Chicago Homestead. 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 75 

ations. They spent their honeymoon extending over a 
period of several months, in European travel. During 
his absence, the handsome residence at the corner of 
A/tichigan Avenue and 23d Street was in course of 
erection, but was not completed until several months 
after their return. Here the family lived until some 
time after his death, with the exception of the sum- 
mer seasons, which were spent in Exmoor Cottage, 
their summer home upon the golf links at Highland 
Park. Father was an adept and great devotee of 
golf, and this recreation did much to keep him in 
good health the last years of his life. He looked very 
little older than his sons when he was sixty years old. 
He furnished his house with costly works of art and 
libraries, and while not ostentatious in arranging his 
surroundings and comforts, his environment was sug- 
gestive of the abode of a scholar and a prince. 

Father's second wife and our stepmother came as 
the two oldest of us were getting ready for college, 
but while the youngest to whom she was particularly 
devoted was yet a small boy, so that she had more 
to do with his bringing up than with that of the other 
children. As the result of an accident which was 
thought trivial at the time, she developed into an in- 
valid, and gradually in the course of several years, 
her nervous system failed and she became bereft of 
reason, until finally on October 15, 1906 she died, — 
surviving Father three years. 

The summer of 1903 was as usual being spent at 
Exmoor Cottage, near Highland Park. It was an 



76 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

ideal country home, with its colonial style of archi- 
tecture, its large and airy rooms, its broad verandas, 
and the surrounding stately trees. To this place 
Father would steal out from town as early each day 
as he could, and as often as he could he did not go to 
the city at all. While coming down stairs in the house 
one morning he stumbled and fell most of the dis- 
tance, and as a result he fainted. He thought noth- 
ing of the incident. Then later he began to have pains 
which he attributed to indigestion as they appeared to 
be in the region of the stomach. In the evening of 
Tuesday, October 6, 1903, and about two weeks after 
his fall, he retired in good spirits after the usual 
afternoon golf game, the evening meal and the game 
of dominoes with the family, and went to sleep with a 
hot water bag to his breast to comfort his supposed 
disorder of the stomach, but an hour later, about 10.30 
P. M., he gave a slight gasp in his sleep which at- 
tracted the attention of Mother's nurse, who went to 
him and discovered that he was dead. It was heart 
failure. So unlooked for and so sudden an event 
came as a terrible shock to the family, excepting his 
wife, who in her distressful mental condition lived on 
until her end came three years later without ever 
knowing that he had gone before. In the same hour 
in which his life went out in Chicago, I was aroused 
from my sleep 2,000 miles away in Seattle, by an 
ominous nightmare which told me what had occurred, 
after a few hours of restless waiting, a messenger 
came to the house and delivered the telegram which 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 77 

confirmed the death message. The next day the Board 
of Trade adjourned during the business session out 
of respect for him, a tribute it had never paid before 
to any other member. That organization felt that 
it had lost its master mind, and his death cast a 
gloom over all. The community of Chicago which 
had now grown in size to over 2,000,000 people felt 
that the taking of him away was a distinct loss, for 
he represented the highest type of citizenship, and as 
such stood out in bold relief as a character worthy of 
the emulation of his fellow men — those present and 
those yet to come. 

He left no will. 

The funeral was held at the Second Presbyterian 
Church on the following Sunday, and the interment 
was in the family lot in Graceland Cemetery, Dr. Gun- 
saleus officiating. Father had been a pewholder, and 
regular attendant at this church since his second mar- 
riage, although not a member of it. Prior to that 
time he had always attended Christ Reformed Epis- 
copal Church, ministered by Bishop Cheney. 

The death of William T. Baker, at the age of sixty- 
two years, drew from the daily press of Chicago and 
elsewhere, editorials of eulogy upon the man of whom 
the whole city was justly proud and whose loss was 
the subject of universal lamentation and regret. The 
different corporations and institutions in Chicago and 
other cities of which he had been a member, met in 
special sessions and adopted resolutions of respect and 
affection, which were engrossed and bound and sent 



78 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

to the bereaved family, and letters from many friends 
and admirers were received from different parts of 
the country. I wish that space would permit of all 
their sentiments being chronicled here. I think I 
ought to record the contribution of persons outside of 
kinship as an expression of the publics' view of him, 
and the one whose statement is typical of all the 
others, and who is ablest of all to speak by virtue of 
a lifelong acquaintance and friendship with him is 
Mr. Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury under 
President McKinley, with whose tribute, dated Sept. 
26, 1906, at Point Loma, Cal., and that of the Na- 
tional Biscuit Company, I will close this chapter. 

"Your letter asking me for some facts relating to your 
father's history, my estimate of his character, etc., is received. 
I wish I could set forth in clear language, what is so well 
portrayed in my own mind concerning him; — but this is the 
effect of incidents, circumstances, associations and conversa- 
tions, the particulars of which cannot be recalled and described. 

Thus I remember him way back in his early days in 
Chicago. He was young, wide awake, enterprising and 
vigorous, firm in principle and uncompromising. These quali- 
ties he showed as the years went on — but just how and when 
this feature and that were demonstrated, I cannot recall. I 
only know he possessed them and that the fruits of these 
qualities were seen, appreciated and enjoyed by his friends 
and acquaintances. He was a lover of Truth and Justice, and 
fearless to espouse them, when occasion demanded. He hated 
their opposites and unsparingly denounced those who excused 
or defended these opposites. 

These characteristics excited opposition and bitterness 
towards him, and he could not escape the darts of malice 
and defamation. As an enemy he was uncompromising and 




Anna Franklin (Phipps) (Morgan) Baker. 




Ex moor Cottage. 

THE SUMMER HOME NEAR HIGHLAND PARK, ILLS. 
IN THIS HOUSE MY FATHER DIED. 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 79 

relentless. As a friend he was affectionate, steadfast and true. 
It was my great privilege to bear this relation to him. In 
the year 1891 or '92, he and I went together to New York 
to attend a banquet given by friends of the "Columbian 
Exposition." On the train I was attacked with symptoms of 
"Appendicitis." As that trouble had at that time received little 
or no recognition, I was of course unconscious of the serious 
nature of my symptoms and would have ignored them, but 
your father seemed to know by intuition that there was 
trouble ahead. At his own cost and without my knowledge, 
he wired to a physician in New York to meet us on arrival 
at the Holland House. The doctor diagnosed the trouble 
correctly and within thirty hours I was under the surgeon's 
knife. Needless to say your father was tireless in his attention 
to all details. He remained near me several days, and I am 
fully satisfied that to his foresight in summoning the doctor 
and to his wise advice I owe really my life. 

He was as prompt to public duty as he was faithful to 
private friendship. That a cause was unpopular, — did not 
discourage him in supporting it. If it were popular he would 
not follow it if opposed to his conviction. 

In 1895 (I think it was) he accepted the Presidency of the 
Civic Federation. Like all reform bodies, it was received with 
sneers and met with contumely. It required courage and devo- 
tion to assume the head of that organization. That the Feder- 
ation accomplished a valuable work, did much to correct 
municipal abuses, and to harmonize the prejudices of a diverse 
population, would now be admitted, and out of that organiza- 
tion has developed "The National Civic Federation" with 
headquarters in New York. 

Your father also held the position of President of the 
"World's Columbian Exposition" in the second year of its 
history. The work was arduous and difficult, but Mr. Baker 
found his way and contributed much to the final triumphs of 



80 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

the great exposition, and for all his services so rendered 
refused all salaried compensation. 

His active business life was related more closely to the 
Board of Trade. There his influence was felt in the establish- 
ment of good rules and in the endorsement of just discipline 
for violation. 

You will see that I have had to speak in general terms 
and my contribution may not be of much service. Whether 
or not you write his biography, the influence of his life and 
character will not be lost. 'No man liveth to himself.' His 
personality affects for good or evil other lives. The seed 
of the fruit he produced will fall into other hearts and lives, 
and so go on like nature's order, producing after its kind." 

The following testimonial was issued by the National 
Biscuit Company: 

'William Taylor Baker, a director of the National Biscuit 
Company, died at his country home near Chicago, on Tues- 
day, October 6, 1903, at the age of sixty-two years. 

The first president of the World's Fair, held in Chicago in 
1893, many times president of the Chicago Board of Trade, 
president of the Civic Federation, vice-president of the Chicago 
Bureau of Charities, a director of the Chicago Art Institute, 
and associated in an official capacity with other public organi- 
zations, he was a patriotic citizen, who sacrificed personal 
interest for the welfare of the people of Chicago in particular, 
and for the general good of humanity everywhere. At one 
time the largest grain merchant in the northwest, a member 
of the board of directors of banks and of various manufac- 
turing and mercantile institutions in which he was financially 
interested, his reputation as a successful man of affairs was 
national in its scope. 

It is, however, as a large stockholder and one of its direc- 
tors continuously from its formation, that the National Biscuit 
Company has had brought home to it the serious loss 
occasioned by the death of Mr. Baker. He was a clear-headed 



CAREER IN CHICAGO 81 

advisor. He investigated carefully and intelligently the many 
important questions of policy with which the board of direc- 
tors of the company has had to deal during the past six years. 
His conclusions were always logical. He saw them projected 
before him in a luminous way, distinct in every detail. When 
his mind was made up, he never swerved or faltered. He 
walked straight the one road he believed would lead him to 
his goal. One of the first to appreciate the value to the com- 
pany of its advertised package goods, he was a strenuous and 
persistent advocate of the vital necessity of making them the 
most prominent feature of its business. He never claimed to 
have any knowledge of the baking trade, but this very fact 
made him all the more helpful to those of his associates who 
had spent their lifetime in it. His wide experience in other 
lines gave him a point of view denied to them, as a man stand- 
ing miles away from tall mountain peaks sees conformations 
sharply outlined against the distant sky which are invisible 
to the dwellers at their base. 

The chief characteristics of William T. Baker were rigid 
honesty and the moral courage to assert and maintain his con- 
victions. He was true hearted. In his family life he was one 
of the most tender and unselfish of men. Dignified, courteous, 
and of unfailing good humor, he was the ideal gentleman in 
business. His influence and example will live long in the 
memory of his fellow directors, each of whom was proud to 
call him friend. 

He has gone to the reward God has prepared for just men." 




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Chapter IV. 

ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER. 

1838-1873. 

EVEN as my father's life would have been in- 
complete without my mother who helped 
make him the man that he was, so would his 
biography be only half done without more than 
a reference to her. She came into his life at the 
threshold of his career in Chicago and brought with 
her all those talents and attributes best calculated to 
sustain him in the realization of his fondest hopes and 
ambitions. I made a pilgrimage last summer to the 
scenes of her girlhood similar to the one I made to 
those of my father, for I felt the same devotion to each 
of them, and neither exploration interested me less 
than did the other. But like all mothers, my mother 
was a woman, and being a woman she became a wife, 
and like most wives her glory thereafter was to shine 
in the reflected light of her husband, as the better 
half of him, or as the world looks at it, his satellite. 
Her sphere was their home, while his was the whole 
world. Therefore by the nature of things and events 
he was the larger luminary and she the lesser one, 
and hence in this biography there must needs be more 
told of him and less of her. Had she remained un- 
married, it is quite likely that her gifts and accomp- 



84 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

lishments would have entitled her to an independent 
biography without the excuse for its justification in 
the being the wife of a great man. How truly it has 
been said — "There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
which taken at its flood leads on to fortune," and truer 
still, "There is a tide in the affairs of women, which 
taken at its flood leads God knows where." But what 
grander destiny can any woman have than wifehood 
and motherhood? 

She was Eliza Annie Dunster, the youngest child 
of Samuel and Susan Dunster, born October 24, 1838, 
on a farm at Durham, New Hampshire, a village of 
only a few families, at that time. She came from a 
sturdy line. The first Dunster in this country came 
over from England in 1640, and he was Henry Dun- 
ster, a learned and devoted Minister of the Gospel, 
a son of Henry Dunster of Lancastershire, England. 
His most conspicuous place in history lies in the fact 
that he was the first President of Harvard University, 
and assisted John Harvard in the founding of it. 
President Dunster was educated at Cambridge Uni- 
versity, England, which also gave to the world an- 
other of Harvard's presidents, President Chauncey, 
as well as John Winthrop and John Cotton of early 
Massachusetts, and such notable characters as Bacon, 
Milton, Dryden, Jeremy Taylor, Newton, Pitt, Byron, 
McCauley, Tennyson, Gray, Wordsworth and Thack- 
ery, — a brilliant setting indeed for the name of my 
first American maternal ancestor. His administration 
as President of Harvard while this school was in its 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 85 

infancy, was eminently successful for fifteen years, 
at the end of which period he was compelled to resign 
because of views which he held in regard to infant 
baptism which were too advanced for those times and 
which caused him to be pronounced a heretic. His 
fearlessness and courage in his beliefs showed him to 
be no less a martyr than if he had been burned at the 
stake. He died in 1659, and he now lies in the ancient 
cemetery opposite the college grounds in Cambridge, 
held down by a weighty Latin inscription and a slab 
of stone. 

History does not record that the Dunster family 
achieved great fame in the Revolutionary War. It 
does say, however, that my great grandfather was a 
private in the Revolutionary War, and in the printed 
genealogy of the family about an inch of space is given 
to his heroic exploits, while over a page is given to 
his attempt at procuring a Revolutionary pension. It 
seems that under the rules then existing, pensions 
were only given to those who were really needy and 
could show good proofs of being paupers. My Revo- 
lutionary sire claimed that honor and a pension, but 
upon investigation it was found that he possessed 
assets consisting of a table worth $1.25 and a chair 
worth 25 cents, total assets of $1.50, and so he failed 
in his pension claim. There is also a pair of great 
iron handcuffs locked and unlocked by a big iron key, 
which an ancestor of mine through this line wore for 
some purpose, either as a civil prisoner or a military 
one, but I have no data to determine which of the 



86 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

two types he belonged to, although my warlike spirit 
leads me to hope it was the latter. 

Samuel Dunster, my grandfather, of the sixth gen- 
eration since the emigrant ancestor, was born in 
Mason Village, New Hampshire, August i, 1803, 
which place I visited last summer. He went to school 
eight w T eeks in winter, and ten weeks in summer at a 
small district school and worked the rest of the time, 
so that at the age of sixteen he had not yet learned 
arithmetic, or geography. He then attended an 
academy for six weeks and finished his education. He 
became a house carpenter and later on a machinist, 
in the meantime devoting his spare time to practical 
self-education, and thus became a surveyor of land, 
doing engineering work in his own and adjacent vil- 
lages. Later he became a calico printer with more or 
less varied success, his aptitude being however more in 
mechanical lines than in commercial pursuits. He 
lived successively in Dover, New Hampshire, and in 
Durham, about five miles distant, at which latter place 
he owned a farm upon which still stands the little 
house in which my mother was born, which is unused 
and neglected today as I saw it. He also lived in 
Providence, Rhode Island, superintending a calico 
print works there, and finally settled down near Attle- 
boro, Massachusetts, upon a small farm where he 
passed the remainder of his days, and where he died 
in 1887. His wife, my grandmother, was Susan Per- 
kins Dow, born July 2j, 1806, in Hollis, Maine, and 
whose parents were among the early settlers of Dover. 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 87 

She died a few years before her husband, and both 
of them were buried in the Dunster lot at Mason Vil- 
lage. 

Returning now to my mother ; — her early girlhood 
was spent in Dover, and there are people living there 
still who remember her as a girl of remarkable intel- 
lectuality, full of fun, and very bright and attractive 
in many ways. Physically she was of the petite order, 
round and plump very much in looks and figure like 
her daughter Bertha. A lady there whom I met, said 
with a twinkle in her eye after describing my mother's 
looks and accomplishments, and observing that I did 
not much resemble her, "I guess though she acted 
much like you." She loved her parents and family 
and friends with a whole heart, and she was loved by 
all in return as ardently as she herself loved. The 
house her family lived in is still there, and it gave 
me great pleasure to visit it and go through the sev- 
eral rooms, where she romped about as a girl. While 
the family lived in Providence, my mother attended 
the public school there, passing through all the grades 
up to the high school to which she was promoted. She 
did not know what it was to have the blues, and she 
made light of the troubles which would depress an 
ordinary person. "What matter does it make," she 
would say, "we will all be dead in a hundred years." 

While she was in the public schools at this time, and 
in the twelfth year of her age, she kept a diary, or a 
"journal" as she called it, which is very neatly written 
in her own handwriting, and which is still preserved. 



88 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

As this journal reflects her young girl mode of think- 
ing, and gives strong suggestions as well of the liter- 
ary talent which she developed later, it may be of 
interest to copy here a few pages from it : — 

"Friday, March 27th, 1851. This afternoon a girl came 
in with her head bleeding dreadfully. Someone had fired a 
stone anjd had hit her on the head. I think it is too bad 
that the boys should throw stones. Miss Bancroft went down 
cellar with her and fixed her. Mr. Keith asked the boys 
about it but none of them would own it. We did not recite 
in Geography this afternoon or Reading. Mr. Keith looked 
at our Journals this afternoon. I do not expect Marion over 
tonight for it is not her turn. The weather is very warm to- 
day. May is quite sick today. The baby is about the same 
as ever. Recited all of my lessons correctly." 

"Tuesday, March 1st, 1851. There I have made a mistake. 
I believe it is April 1st, but I shall not scratch it out and alter 
it for father does not wish me to. I have not been April fooled 
yet but I have April fooled Mary Northrep. It is very pleas- 
ant today. Our washwoman came today and brought her 
little baby. She is 10 months old. My baby is about the 
same. She does not grow any. I wish she was smart like 
other children. I missed in Geography this afternoon. I 
got April fooled by Emily Winsor this afternoon. I will here 
copy a piece of poetry which I made about the school a good 
while ago. 

If one of the scholars breaks the rule 

Of Mr. Keith's large Grammar School, 

They have to go and bring the stick 

Which makes the tears flow down so quick. 

They feel as if they were a-flying 

While they go to their seats a-crying. 

But when their shedding tears are over 

They begin to look so very sober 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 89 

They soon get very tired and weary, 

And then get up their good old cheery, 

Which makes them go and bring the stick 

And then they have a harder lick, 

And I do not think it more than fair 

For the stick to be raised high as their hair." 
"Monday, June 2nd. Today is the first day of the term. 
I recited in Reading this afternoon. Mr. Keith let all the 
first class go to the High School and Frederic Bacheldor. 
He did not get in. I do not know what girls have got in. 
We had quite a shower this afternoon. I spent the vacation 
very pleasantly. I was over to Marion's part of the time and 
the rest of the time she was up to my house. I hope I shall 
have a higher seat this term. I guess I will make some reso- 
lutions which I shall try and keep this term. I will write 
them on the opposite page. 

Resolved — 

1st, that I will not talk neither, make letters with my 
fingers. 

2nd, study my lessons. 

3rd, write as good as I can in my journal. 

4th, sit up or study when my teacher tells me to. 

5th, not turn around in my seat unless I forget it. 

6th, not eat anything in school. 

7th, not write to anyone on my slate. 

8th, will not copy my sums from another's slate. 

9th, will strive to keep all my resolutions." 
It was at this time the family moved to Dover, 
and then she went to a little school called Franklin 
Academy a picture of which is shown in this book. 
This school has since been torn down to give place 
to a manufacturing structure. At this time, she was 
fifteen years of age, when her father although of most 
modest means, sent her to Bradford Academy, a select 



90 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

finishing school for girls, in Bradford, Massachusetts, 
on account of her unusual aptitude in her studies and 
her ambition for a more complete education. At this 
academy she remained for the full term of four years, 
and graduated therefrom in 1856 at the head of her 
class, although the youngest in it. This academy has 
since grown to be a much larger school and has moved 
from its ancient quarters to a more pretentious and 
modern building. I visited the old school and the new 
one in the adjoining block, and made myself 
acquainted with the teaching staff, and the equipment 
and the curriculum of the present day. The teachers 
took a very genuine interest in my coming for the 
purpose of looking up the traditions of my mother, 
and they very gladly looked up the records and the 
old catalogues, wherein they found her chronicled 
with the rest of the girls of her time. It pleased me 
to see the school and the young ladies there, and to 
imagine how fifty years ago she tripped about as 
gayly and happily as did those young ladies whom I 
saw, and studied as hard as they did or vice versa, 
and looked as pretty or prettier. 

My mother as a girl was remarkably fond of Latin 
and Geometry, and could demonstrate from memory 
every theorem in the first four books of Euclid. At her 
graduation from Bradford Academy, she wrote the 
parting hymn, which in that institution was equivalent 
to the valedictory of a college course. After her 
graduation from this academy, she went to Mrs. Wil- 
lard's school, at Troy, New York, finishing a short 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 91 

term there, and then fired with a great ambition to 
make her own way, she went to St. Charles, Illinois, 
and secured a position as school teacher. It was at 
this place that she so distinguished herself for scholar- 
ship and ability that it led to her being selected by 
the Amite Female Academy at Liberty, Mississippi, as 
an instructor in English Literature and other branches 
which were taught in that institution. 

It was about this time that important events lead- 
ing up to the Civil War were transpiring in the coun- 
try, and situated as she was in Mississippi, she was 
quite within the arena where the anti-bellum troubles 
were rapidly crystalizing into that great and terrible 
war which was soon to divide the nation against itself. 
As a result of these trying times, the Amite Seminary 
was dissolved and she then pursued her course north- 
ward again, going this time to Chicago, where she 
soon became a teacher in the public schools. In top- 
ical subjects which formed a prominent part of the 
exercises there, she raised her particular school to a 
higher standard than any other in the city. Her 
career as teacher ended with her marriage to my 
father. 

My mother was remarkably gifted in a literary 
way, and early in childhood she manifested a pro- 
nounced fondness for standard poetry and an aptitude 
for verse of her own creation, which talent she im- 
proved or neglected according to impulse. Poetic 
taste and appreciation is good for the soul and reflects 
a person's higher nature such as hers was and she 



92 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

indulged it frequently. At Bradford Academy she 
wrote several pieces for the "Olive Branch, ,, a paper 
published by the girl students and of which she was 
in her turn the editor. At Chicago, for two years she 
wrote the annual New Year's Carrier's Address for 
the Chicago Tribune, which took the form of a supple- 
ment sent out with the New Year's edition each year, 
which recited in verse the most important history of 
the year pertaining to the nation at large, but more 
particularly to Chicago. This practice, I believe, has 
long since been discontinued. At that time the matter 
was the subject of competition open to the public, the 
reward to the person successful in presenting the 
best poem being $100, which as stated before, my 
mother won twice. One of her poems she wrote in its 
entirety the night before she delivered it, for the set 
purpose of earning money to buy Father a beautiful 
ring for a Christmas present. The Chicago Tribune 
was the leading Republican paper of the West, and in 
her address which enabled her to buy the ring she re- 
viewed the political situation with the tact of an old 
campaign leader. In 1867 the submarine cable across 
the Atlantic Ocean was successfully laid, and the 
tunnel supplying water to the city of Chicago from a 
crib two miles out in Lake Michigan had been com- 
pleted, and these events she thus notices in her 
address : — 
"What has last year left as dowry to the hand-maids, Science, 

Art? 
Ah ! how rife with grand achievements is the Scientific part ! 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 93 

Buried in the ocean's bosom, down below the mighty deep, 
'Mid the wreck of myriad vessels, where their human cargoes 

sleep, 
Darts the lightnings, chained and tempered, guided by a 

single thread, 
And from Europe to our own land, instant weal or woe is 

read. 
Wondrous triumph of a genius ! Whispered words are eager 

caught, 
Through abyss of depth unfathomed, news and rumors now 

are brought. 
Europe bids the States "Good morning" ; Liverpool doth New 
York greet, 
Fast Chicago joins the refrain, Commerce asks the price of 

wheat ; 
So the 'Cable' prates and gossips, spinning out the watery 

miles, 
And the 'mermaids' laugh and listen, laving it with dripping 

smiles. 
Fact! it seems there's nothing left now; Science may her 

hands but fold. 
Wonder if the future ages can excel our doings bold ! 
At some distant 'Happy New Year' will Orion's glittering 

belt, 
Gossiped be in star-hung Cables, and his salutations felt? 
Shall the growling 'Ursa-Major' send dispatches to the earth, 
Arvd the 'Pleiads' hunt their Sister, telegraphing of her 

worth ? 

Nor forget we great Chicago, mighty umpire of the West, 
Wreathe for her distinguished honor, for she leadeth all the 

rest. 
Queen she is of all the cities; Commerce, Art, Religion, too, 
Here have built their proudest temples, mammoth structures 

rise to view 



94 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

As by magic, and, completed, always are the largest, best, 
Spite of foreign grunts and envies, spite of Eastern sneers 
and jest. 

Who but she has wrought a 'Tunnel' poising lakes upon its 

back, 
Never resting till she brought us crystal waters o'er its track? 
Now farewell ! ye slimy waters ! fluid of most dubious look ! 
Henceforth shall our drink be limpid, lucid as the babbling 

brook. 
Here 'adieux' we make in parting, to our piscatory friends ; 
Showers of blessings, not of fishes, happily not the 'Tunnel' 

sends." 

And again, and upon the occasion of the reunion 
of Bradford Academy graduates at the home of Miss 
Gilman, the former principal, at Boston, she read the 
following clever poem which she had composed for the 
occasion and which was afterwards printed and distri- 
buted among the graduates. This poem is well worth 
reading, not only for its literary merit, but as a display 
of her womanly instincts and her wife-like senti- 
ments : — 

TO ALL GREETING. 

Reminiscence ! Reminiscence ! 

Blessings on the word and gift ; 
Praises to the Heavenly Author, 

Gladly for this day we lift — 
That in History, thro' life's mistery, 

He hath painted pleasant scenes 
Thus with gladness, yet with sadness 

We come back to olden dreams. 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 95 

Lay aside the veil of ''Present/' 

Stand upon the ancient shore, 
Girlhood's hopes and youthful visions, 

Which we had in days of yore, 
Rise before us, with the chorus 

Of a hundred happy hearts ; 
Little dreaming of the seeming 

Of this "Future's" sober parts. 

Back with trembling step we wander, 

Thro' old halls so rife with scene, 
Here and there to dream and ponder, 

From each nook, a thought to glean. 
Olden beauties — troublous duties — 

Make us smile or fret in turn; 
These recalling, rising, falling, 

Change our hearts, with chill or burn. 

Can it be but yester-even, 

That the brain-wrought, weary head, 
Heard with joy, that bell of omen, 

Summon all while prayer was said? 
O that blessing ! then caressing 

Each loved form that bent to hear, 
Still we're listening, eyelids glistening, 

With soft reminiscent tear! 

Many a voice that worshipped with us, 

Hushed is now — nor rises here — 
Each of us can trace the vacant, 

Lonesome place of memory's dear. 
Yet in glory, pure and holy, 

Stand those sister spirits now. 
Far above us, still they love us, 

If to earth, Heaven's own may bow. 



96 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

Yet why dim this festive hour 

With the saddened thoughts that rise? 
Fondly let sweet memory's bower 

Revel here in pleasant ties, 
Let us laughing, ever quaffing, 

Happy cups from "Auld Lang Syne," 
Intermingle; merry jingle; 

With the silver bells of Time. 

Let us smile at early "castles," 

Queer, fantastic, girlhood's dreams, 
Melted now to "airy nothings," 

With their gorgeous tinsel gleams. 
Olden picture ! — Present mixture ! 

Let us turn from that, to this — 
Curious scatterings ! furious batterings ! 

Yet here's larger love and bliss ! 
Mayhap old heroes have turned "Neros," 

Or temple "niche" of fickle "Fame," 
Has but refused us, or abused us, 

Denying e'er illustrious name. 

Alas! how once with thrill ecstatic 

In our wondrous journals then, 
Did we depict our glorious Future 

With the girl's romantic pen. 
Every one to wealth, or glory, 

Heroine, or hero's wife, 
We turn — sublime, contrasting story, 

To the present earnest life. 

Plain John Smith has proven hero, 
The niche in Fame has been a — crib ! 

Women's lives have all turned out so, 
Since Adam old first lost a "rib" ! 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 97 

Few move out of narrow orbit, 

Or shine but with reflected light; 
Occasionally a restless "comet" 

Soars aloft with reckless flight. 
But with "trailing" comes a wailing, 

"Woman's Sphere" is wailed by men, 
"Homo" pulling at the "check rein," 

She soon drops down to home again! 

Still which mother, would seek other 

Brighter jewels for her life. 
Bless our children! bless our darlings! 

Blessings on the name of wife ! 
Precious are our Pearls and Rubies, 

Eternal is the mother's crown, 
Paradise but opened to us, 

When old "castles" tumbled down. 

Many, too, have fought with honor, 

In the pedagogic field, 
Brains have worked o'er brainless pupils, 

'Neath the patient learning's shield, 
So she bearing once our wearing, 

Trying acts and hapless pranks, 
Still hath bravely passed thus safely 

Up the honored classic ranks. 

She who tasked us, now hath asked us, 

Back from busy life, or sport, 
Again to meet her, and to greet her, 

With life's story and report. 
As those soldiers summoned forward 

By the voice that led the host, 
Fervently with heart responded, 

As they marched with joyful toast. 



98 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

"We are coming, Abraham, Father, 
With a hundred thousand strong." 

So from East and West we answer, 

With like fervor, love and song, 
"We are coming, Alma Mater, 

Coming back to scenes of yore, 
Come to greet thee, still loved teacher, 

Ere the "vesper" hour is o'er. 
Come reciting of our loved ones, 

Come to tell thee of our lives, 
Come to beg thee bless our darlings, 

Come as true and honest wives. 
Come to tell of these, our glories, 

Come to lisp our trials, too. 
Come to whisper, gentle Teacher, 

Many a solemn passage through. 

And when each shall say her lesson, 

Matron, maiden, mother, wife, 
Each one give her present "abstract," 

Of this riper, nobler life, 
Thou shalt "mark" us, "Smiths," "Jones," "Parkers," 

With that faithful hand of yore, 
Not severely, but as nearly 

As thou can'st, please "mark" us "4." 

With her girlhood spent among the hills of New 
Hampshire, and with all the inspirations that the best 
of nature could afford, it is not to be wondered at that 
if she had poetic talent it should find early demonstra- 
tion. The whole environment was poetical. Hardly 
a stone's throw away lived the poet John G. Whittier, 
who stirred the country with his verses in a manner 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 99 

that will endure for all time. She lived in an age of 
poets, and in a country seared with the patriotic his- 
tory of the two first American wars. Not far from 
the birthplace of her father, and only a few rods from 
his final burying place is situated a humble little cot- 
tage, called "Uncle Sam's House." This is the 
original birthplace and abode of Samuel Wilson, from 
whom the character of "Uncle Sam" as impersonat- 
ing the United States of America, was derived. Dur- 
ing the War of 1812, he was a government contrac- 
tor living at Troy, New York, furnishing supplies to 
the army. The consignments sent out by him to the 
government were all branded "U. S.," and as he was 
familiarly called "Uncle Sam," to distinguish him 
from his brother who was called "Uncle Ned," it soon 
grew into practice for all government goods to be 
dubbed as "Uncle Sam's." U. S. stood for him and 
U. S. stood for the country too, so in time this real 
and living Uncle Sam came to stand figuratively for 
the United States Nation, not only in the army, but 
later throughout the whole country, and the people 
have been pleased to keep it up. Whether the real 
"Uncle Sam" really looked the way he is characterized 
or not, is not known. He died in 1844. 

My mother was romantic, as was my father, and 
no better demonstration of this can be had than the 
particular event of their marriage. It seems that he 
had been "waiting on her" for something over a year 
with the usual attentions of an ardent lover, when on 
the 5th day of July, 1862, they happened to go on a 



100 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

railroad excursion and picnic to Beloit, Wisconsin, 
which is not a very long ride from Chicago. The 
occasion was one of great merriment and joy to all 
who went. Some one suggested as a feature of the 
outing, while they were all in the midst of their 
luncheon, that they have a wedding. Boys, girls and 
chaperones all fell in with the idea, as one that 
would lend unusual interest to the day. The senti- 
ment was unanimous. But who would they have to 
get married? In response to the call for volunteers, 
my mother and father came forward, and were upon 
that day and on the spot united in marriage by the 
Rev. Dr. H. N. Brinsmade, of Beloit. It is of course, 
quite likely that their minds had been made up to 
this end some time before the happy event really took 
place. 

At this point should be mentioned the children 
which came to William Taylor Baker and Eliza Annie 
Dunster through this union. 

1. William Dunster Baker, named for his father and his 
maternal grandfather, Samuel Dunster, was born at Attleboro, 
Massachusetts, September 12, 1863. He was a frail and sickly 
baby and his mother was unable to give him the health and 
strength necessary to prolong his life. He died July 27th, 
1864, at the age of 10 months and 15 days, and was buried in 
Graceland Cemetery, Chicago. 

2. Charles Hinckley Baker — the author of this book — 
named in honor of his father's first Chicago employer and 
subsequent partner, Charles Hinckley, was born in Chicago, 
November 30, 1864. He was educated at Cornell University, 
from which he was graduated with honors as a civil engineer 
in June, 1886. He at once entered railroad engineering and 




Samuel Dunster. 



Eliza Annie (Dunster) Baker. 




Leslie D. F. Baker. Wm, T. Baker, Jr. 

Dorothy Elizabeth Baker. 



grandchildren of wm. t. baker and children of the author. 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 101 

construction work in Dakota for the Chicago & Northwestern 
Railway at $30 a month, which lasted a year, and he then 
went to Seattle, Washington, and engaged in the same line 
of work for the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad. 
After three years he resigned and opened a private engineering 
office, which later developed into a contracting business for 
railroad and water works construction. From 1898 to 1904 
he projected and built, in partnership with his father, the 
Snoqualmie Falls and White River Power plants, which supply 
electric light and power to Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, and the 
intervening towns. Since the completion of this work he 
with his college mate and associate, Frank S. Washburn, also 
an engineer, organized the Muscle Shoals Hydro-Electric 
Power Company, and the Alabama Interstate Power Company, 
of Alabama, in each of which companies he is half owner 
These companies have under development about 200,000 H. P. 
on the Tennessee and Talapoosa Rivers in Alabama, which 
will be distributed in Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, and 
constitute a project about ten times larger than Snoqualmie. 
With the same associate he also organized and controls and is 
vice-president of the American Cyanamid Company, own- 
ing the rights in America for the manufacture and sale of 
calcium cyanamid or lime nitrogen, the nitrogen being derived 
from the atmosphere. This will be universally used as a 
fertilizer and in the arts, for which purpose great quantities 
of power from the water power plants will be required. He 
was married in 1888 to Miss Gertrude Gladys France, of Rome, 
N. Y., and they have had four children, William Taylor Baker, 
named after the subject of this book, Theodore Anderson 
Baker, who died at the age of ten months, Leslie David France 
Baker, and Dorothy Elizabeth Baker. 

3. Howard Winfield Baker, named in honor of his father's 
native town, West Winfield, New York, was born in Chicago, 
March 19, 1866. Contemporaneously with his older brother 
he was educated at Cornell University, and was graduated 



102 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

from there at the same time, the youngest in his class, as a 
civil engineer. He engaged in railroad work in Dakota for 
about a year for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, and 
then went to Seattle, where for a year he served as engineer 
of construction on the waterfront trestle of the Seattle, Lake 
Shore & Eastern Railroad. He then gave up engineering 
and engaged in the real estate business with considerable profit 
to himself, and finally and for about five years he developed 
a profitable business on the harbor front, in the shipping of 
merchandise and as agent for several steamship lines. The 
panic of 1893, together with the collapse of his dock due to 
a storm, put him out of business in Seattle. He then returned 
to Chicago, where his older brother soon secured for him a 
position in the employ of Butler Brothers' wholesale establish- 
ment, with which concern he is still officially connected, hav- 
ing been promoted from a humble beginning to the position 
of assistant manager of the Chicago house, which he now 
holds. He also has a considerable financial interest in the busi- 
ness, secured through the assistance of his father. Butler 
Brothers is the largest concern in the United States, dealing 
at wholesale in notions, toys, dry goods, and general small 
counter goods. They have business houses in Chicago, St. 
Louis, Minneapolis and New York. He has been twice 
married and twice a widower, having first been married to 
Mrs. Josephine Geiger, of Chicago, and the second time to 
Mrs. Josephine Nevins, of New York. 

4. , Annie Merriam Baker, familiarly called by her mother 
"Kitty," was born in Chicago, March 29, 1868. While still an 
infant she was attacked with scarletine and brain fever, which 
permanently impaired her mental faculties, so that she grew 
up into a woman perfect in her physical development but 
mentally deficient. She is cared for in a private sanitarium 
at Kalamazoo, Michigan. This child possessed all the grace, 
beauty and charm of her mother, and but for the distressful 
incident of her babyhood, would have grown into a woman of 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 103 

charming traits and talents, including the gift of music. This 
musical instinct she displays now even under the cloud of 
her mental derangement. As a girl she had the physical 
features and figure and lovely hair worthy of the sculptor's 
or the painter's highest art. Though in years she is now a 
woman, yet she still remains a child, happy and contented, 
knowing no grief nor sorrow, living within herself unmindful 
of passing events, and not appreciating the changes which time 
has made in her family; — and so she will continue to do while 
she lives. 

o. Bertha Cozette Baker, so named by her mother, who 
as a child gave the same name to her dolls, was born in 
Chicago, November 14, 1869, and was educated in the public 
schools and in Dearborn Seminary in that city. Growing into 
womanhood about the time that her step-mother began to 
fail, she naturally entered into the management of her father's 
household affairs, which she did with grace and dignity, and 
with the business acumen of a trained matron, up to the time 
of his death and the consequent dismantelling of the home- 
stead. Towards her step-mother in her failing mental and 
physical health she acted more than the part of an own 
daughter. She put away her girlhood pleasures, in order 
that she might with greater devotion perform the duty to her 
father as she saw it in the caring for his wife, and this devotion 
has consecrated her in the hearts of all who know her, as a 
person of gentleness, patience, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. She 
was married in September, 1903, to Mr. Van Wagenen Ailing, 
of Chicago, who at the time was a mechanical engineer con- 
nected with the staff of Wells Brothers, Contractors. Since 
then he has resigned and organized and now heads the Ailing 
Construction Co., which is engaged in general building con- 
tracting. They were absent on her wedding trip at the time of 
her father's sudden death. They have one child, a daughter 
named Bertha, after its mother. 

6. Henry Dunster Baker was born on his Grandfather 



104 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

Dunster's farm near Attleboro, Massachusetts, February 26, 
1872. His name was given him by his grandfather at the 
request of his mother, who named him in honor of Henry 
Dunster, the first of the line in this country. He was the 
favorite of the children with his step-mother, who coming 
as she did while he was yet a small child, had most to do with 
his bringing up. He was educated at Yale College, where he 
achieved distinction in his class and where he was graduated 
in 1896, in the literary branches. He entered journalism after 
his graduation, taking a position as reporter for the Chicago 
Tribune. He did this work with such success that he was in 
time promoted in charge of the editorial work of the financial 
column of that paper, succeeding to the position formerly held 
by Mr. Vanderlip, now Vice-President of the National City 
Bank, of New York. While serving as reporter he is remem- 
bered as having distinguished himself by ingeniously securing 
for his paper a number of valuable "scoops." He kept this 
position for several years, and then engaged in writing upon 
financial topics for several different papers. Later he moved 
to Minneapolis and became associate editor of the Commercial 
West, one of the leading financial and trade papers in the 
Northwest. He finally withdrew from this paper and returned 
to Chicago, where he still continues his literary pursuits, com- 
bining the same with financial operations, in which he has 
been successful. He was married in November, 1906, to Miss 
Edna Woolen, of Boston, Massachusetts. He has recently 
been appointed consul at Hobart, Tasmania. 

If our mother and father have given in fair meas- 
ure their attributes to their children, — the children 
are indeed richly endowed. 

My mother was active in church matters, and very 
popular in society where she was always in demand 
because of her literary and dramatic ability, but her 
devotion to her children was the great and con- 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 105 

spicuous charm of her life among those who knew 
her best. She was clever indeed in amateur theatricals 
and several most creditable productions were held in 
our home for the benefit of some of the church organi- 
zations. 

It was the custom of the family to spend every sum- 
mer upon Grandfather Dunster's farm in Massa- 
chusetts. We, the children, looked forward to the 
coming of summer, months in advance, chaffing at the 
way the school term dragged along, with no desire to 
close itself, and impatiently packing and unpacking 
our little trunks every few days to kill time. And 
when we went it was like a circus moving; — trunks, 
boxes and baby carriages piled high on vans, and a 
carriage or two full of children of all ages and sexes, 
and a Papa going along to the depot to give final 
directions and to say goodbye, half sorry to have us 
go and yet half glad withal to get free of us for a 
time. We took stacks of cold lunches, for dining cars 
were not then invented. Grandpa adopted us every 
year. We learned from him how to plow and culti- 
vate, make hay, run a lathe and make dovetail boxes, 
and to be expert geologists as well. We helped to 
manage the setting hens, and suckling calves. We fed 
the pigs and churned the butter. We went swimming 
and berrying and did all those things which made 
Grandpa's farm appear as we look backwards in our 
lives as the real oasis, where our young characters 
received a great deal of their early and best mould- 
ing. Late in the summer before our vacation was 



106 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

over, Father would usually come to join us for a couple 
of weeks, and while there he would assist us in making 
kites and flying them, in which art as a boy he had 
been an expert ; and he would also work in Grandpa's 
shop and turn clever things on the lathe. I went back 
there last summer and rambled around all over as of 
old, and I could not help but think; — 

"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood 
When fond recollection present them to view ; 

The orchard, the meadow, the dear-tangled wildwood, 
And all the loved spots which my infancy knew." 

From the summer visit of 1871, our mother had 
just returned to Chicago, leaving us children to come 
later with our Aunt Mary, when the great Chicago 
fire broke out, so that Father had her return to Attle- 
boro again immediately, where we all spent the fall 
and winter, and where during this time, the last child 
was born. The summer of 1873 was as usual spent in 
the East, and during this visit our mother renewed 
acquaintance with all the friends of her early days, 
and returned with us all to Chicago about the first 
of September of that year. Not long after this, she 
started from the house one Saturday afternoon to 
go to a matinee, but within an hour she was brought 
back upon a stretcher in an unconscious condition and 
with a terrible gash across her temple. She had taken 
an omnibus to go down town, when the horses becom- 
ing frightened engaged in a mad runaway down 
Wabash Avenue, which resulted in her being thrown 
on her head against the curbstone of the street while 






ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 107 

foolishly attempting to get out of the conveyance. 
The person following behind in the general panic, 
stepped on her skirt and caused her to trip. At first 
it was thought that she was not dangerously injured, 
but after a few days she again became delirious, in 
which state of mind she repeatedly called for her chil- 
dren and for her husband, he being in New York City 
at the time, and not having been sent for as her con- 
dition was not at first considered really serious. How- 
ever, after a week of suffering, she died September 
17, 1873, but not before Father had returned to her 
and consciousness had been regained, so that with the 
knowledge that the end was at hand, she was able to 
tell him and her five little children her last good bye. 
For three days while waiting the coming of relatives, 
Father wept by her casket night and day, and his great 
grief was shared by us little children in a dazed sort 
of way, and we hardly appreciated the terribleness of 
the calamity which had befallen us. She was then 
only thirty-five years old. Bishop Charles Edward 
Cheney, her pastor, made an affectionate address at 
the funeral, to which nearly all the congregation of 
Christ Church attended at the family residence on 
Michigan Avenue. She was buried in Graceland 
Cemtery, beside her first baby. 

Mr. Cheney in writing to her father said: — 
"You speak of gratitude for what I said at your daughter's 
funeral. I assure it was the sincere utterance of my heart. 
Mrs. Baker was exceedingly dear to Mrs. Cheney and myself. 
Our acquaintance began when she was in deep affliction (the 
death of Willie, her first born), and the ties thus formed grew 



108 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

stronger every year. She was universally beloved by all our 
church as well as by a large circle of friends outside its limits. 
Her fondness for literary pursuits and literary society rendered 
her the centre of attraction for a great many who had similar 
tastes, while her devotion to her family and children was her 
chief charm to those who knew her best. 

Besides what I have already alluded to, viz., her literary 
culture and her love for her children, the most marked char- 
acteristics of Mrs. Baker's life were her cheerfulness under 
all circumstances, and her unselfish, gentle, Christian spirit. 
These made her beloved by rich ari : d poor alike; and her 
memory is cherished by many who will never forget her words 
and deeds of kindness." 

And so our young mother was taken away, and 
left us five little children, I being nine years old and 
the oldest, and the youngest only a baby. Her sister, 
our Aunt Mary Smith, then came and took her place 
for six years, and no mother ever lived who gave more 
real love and devotion to her own children than did 
Aunt Mary to us. She died in about a year after 
leaving us and was buried beside her two infant chil- 
dren at Dover, New Hampshire. I have often won- 
dered, had our mother lived, if we children would 
have scattered around the country as we did when we 
grew up. 

On President Dunster's coat of arms designed by 
himself appeared this Latin word, — "Veritas" mean- 
ing that that symbol would be a guide star to his daily- 
life, to the end that he might aspire to be an incarnation 
of that exalted principle. Over the gateway of Har- 
vard University is also inscribed today this same 



ELIZA ANNIE DUNSTER 



109 



"Veritas" handed down from him. And it came even 
further and to my mother whose whole life exempli- 
fied the truth. 




Chapter V 

CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 

1 890- 1 897 

CHICAGO, by virtue of her geographical loca- 
tion naturally in her early history became the 
grain centre of the United States. The great 
grain producing areas of the country extended 
hundreds of miles out from her borders and 
three-fourths around her horizon. She was situ- 
ated at the head of navigation on the Great 
Lakes and was in the line of railroad develop- 
ment. It was only logical that grain and trans- 
portation converging at that point, should result in 
a trade mart springing up there. As the outlying 
agricultural districts were put under cultivation more 
and more, it came about that a small colony of grain 
merchants and traders developed and became an im- 
portant feature of the business community. They had 
no particular organization. The farmers came in 
from the fields and sold their produce to commission 
merchants or warehousemen, or some times these mer- 
chants went out and met the farmer upon his own 
premises, viewed the grain growing in his fields or 
stored in his grannery, and purchased it from him 
there. The merchant in turn would make up carloads 
of grain and ship them to the millers, and to seaboard 
points upon the Atlantic, and in later years to foreign 



112 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

countries. As a matter of convenience to both mer- 
chant and farmer, it became necessary for the trading 
to be done in a particular place, rather than wherever 
the farmer would find his merchant or the merchant 
find his farmer, and so there developed in 1848 a vol- 
untary organization on South Water Street, which 
went by the name of the Board of Trade. This or- 
ganization a year later, was incorporated under the 
general incorporation laws of the State with Thomas 
Dyer as its first President, and so continued until 
1859, when it was reorganized under a special charter 
given by the State of Illinois. The declared objects of 
the organization were: — "To maintain a commercial 
exchange; to promote uniformity in the customs and 
objects of merchants ; to inculcate principles of justice 
and honesty in trade; to facilitate the speedy adjust- 
ment of business disputes ; to acquire and disseminate 
valuable commercial and economic information; and 
generally, to secure to its members the benefits of co- 
operation in the furtherance of their legitimate pur- 
suits." With a foundation resting upon this declara- 
tion of principles and purposes, and dwelling in the 
midst of a natural situation which of necessity gave 
birth to it, the Chicago Board of Trade grew from 
its primitive beginning until it became, in fact, the 
greatest organization of its kind in the world, and as 
such it has exercised a widespread influence and 
power. Other similar organizations, although of 
smaller stature, developed in other parts of the coun- 
try, and each of the others has served its useful pur- 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 113 

pose and exercised its own particular sphere of in- 
fluence. 

In 1853 the Board moved its quarters to No. 8 
Dearborn Street, at which time the interest taken in 
the Board was so small that the Secretary was ordered 
to provide refreshments for the members in order to 
induce them to attend. A reading room was also in- 
stalled for the same purpose. The Board moved 
again in 1856 to the corner of South Water and La 
Salle Streets, and two years later for the first time 
in its history it began to receive daily reports of 
market conditions from outside points like New York, 
Montreal and Buffalo. The Board was not on a 
stable or paying basis until 1857. During the early 
part of its existence it took a leading part in all affairs 
touching the City of Chicago and the extension of its 
trade. It donated $10,000 to the support of the Civil 
War in April, 1861, and made many other similar 
donations before the war closed. In this year which 
was the year my father came to town, its membership 
was only 725. In 1864 it again moved and this time 
to the Chamber of Commerce Building where it re- 
mained until the great fire. Its present building was 
completed in 1885 at a cost of $1,800,000. Prior to 
1858 the chief measure which it had inaugurated and 
was responsible for, was the substitution of weights 
instead of measures in measuring grains, seeds and 
other commodities, and later the designation of wheat 
by standard grades, which has since become the sys- 
tem in universal use. 



114 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

Following the success of the Chicago Board of 
Trade and others like it, there came into being the 
National Board of Trade, being a combination of all 
American Boards of Trade, having for its purpose 
the bringing of the igredient members into closer re- 
lationship with each other for the establishment of a 
community of interests and for the betterment and 
furtherance of their individual purposes and their 
purposes as a whole. The National Board of Trade 
has its headquarters in Philadelphia, and meets in 
convention once a year, generally in Washington, 
D. C, and often in other important cities. In the evo- 
lution of trade as it may proceed from now on and into 
the future, it might be reasonable to expect that an 
International Board of Trade may result, for the pur- 
pose of bringing into closer relation the trade organi- 
zations of Europe and other countries, with those of 
America. The railroads, the telegraphs, and the sub- 
marine cables are apparently making the world grow 
smaller and smaller as time goes on, and business in- 
terests are thereby brought into closer and closer re- 
lationship, and an International Board of Trade may 
be the final result of it. 

The parts which Boards of Trade play in our mod- 
ern civilization are impressive. They bring into corre- 
lation the resources of the mind and field with the 
power of human thought and activity. They give rise 
to the simplifying of business methods, and to reduc- 
ing expenses incidental to the distribution of mer- 
chandise, and to the minimizing of risks. They are 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 115 

able to mirror the trade situation not only as to its 
local aspects, but to worldwide conditions and in- 
fluences. They stimulate and sustain industry and 
commercial conditions, and so help lay the foundation 
stones of prosperity by creating regulated and equit- 
able competition among merchants, not only in re- 
stricted areas, but in worldwide spheres. 

It was either men or conditions, or a combination 
of both, which eventually caused the Chicago Board 
of Trade to tower and loom high in the ranks of simi- 
lar organizations, until in prestige and in dignity, in 
power and influence, and in volume of business, it 
stood without a peer. Then came a blight upon it 
like a festering sore, the bucket-shops, which from an 
insignificant beginning, at first hardly noticed, grew 
to such a degree that it threatened the very underpin- 
ning of the Board of Trade itself. The bucket-shop 
idea, was to trade upon the Board of Trade quota- 
tions; to extend to its patrons the privilege of gam- 
bling upon or guessing what the Board of Trade 
quotations in a given commodity would be from one 
moment to another, and charging a small stipend or 
bet to the person who wished to indulge in the gam- 
bling or guessing. The development of this business 
attracted by its allurements a large number of people 
of small means, who would make bets in varying 
amounts from $10 up. This system grew as parasites 
grow, thriving upon the more wholesome thing upon 
which it fastens itself. It well and consistently took 
its name "Bucket-shop" from a degraded order of 



116 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

scavengers in England, whose avocation was to go 
around from place to place and drain the dregs from 
empty and abandoned beer and wine casks into 
buckets, until a sufficient quantity had been gathered 
to make it the subject of barter, when it would be sold 
to a place called a bucket shop, and where in turn the 
dregs would be bought by people who were willing to 
accept such a low standard of goods. The bucket-shop 
evil was contended with by the Board of Trade organ- 
ization in a desultory way as time went on, permitting 
the incubus to grow to its full strength until it reached 
a point where a definite and determined fight would 
have to be made against it to preserve the existence of 
the Board of Trade itself. 

At this point in the history of the Board of Trade 
my father begins to loom conspicuously. The mem- 
bers of the Board with one accord, looked to him as 
the man of the hour, and as their Moses to lead them 
through this sea of trouble and to destroy their com- 
mon enemy. With bucket-shops as an issue therefore 
and with my father as the champion of the proposed 
crusade, the election of January, 1890, found him at 
the age of forty-nine beginning his first term as Presi- 
dent of the Board of Trade, and then and there the 
fight began. I have heard him spoken of figuratively 
in this connection later as having been to the Board 
of Trade what President Roosevelt is to the United 
States. The net result of choosing this "Teddy" for 
captain, and turning him loose like a bulldog upon the 
situation, was for the first time in the history of the 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 117 

Board to route the bucket-shop industry. To accom- 
plish this, heroic measures had to be resorted to, but 
Father employed them without hesitation. The pow- 
erful telegraph companies, which for years had en- 
joyed the undisturbed privilege of sending continuous 
quotations from the floor of the Board were peremp- 
torily ordered off the floor. It was found that promi- 
nent brokers on the Exchange were in collusion with 
bucket-shopmen on the outside, and these were sternly 
disciplined, and such other action was taken from 
time to time as was necessary to cut off all communi- 
cation with the Board through which the bucket-shops 
received their quotations, and they, were thus unable 
to do business in the same old way. One by one these 
parasites on the Board were killed off, and their illegal 
business stamped out in large installments. As the 
plague grew less in Chicago, however, it took root 
and began to thrive in other cities, so that the fight 
had to be carried on outside of the limits of the State 
of Illinois. 

My Father's first administration as President of 
the Board covered the most prosperous year in its 
history, which condition was due not only to the gen- 
eral prosperity throughout the country, but to the 
making of such great strides in disinfecting the busi- 
ness from the bucket-shop iniquity. There were 19 13 
enrolled members of the Board in this year, which 
at the time was the high water mark in its member- 
ship. Chicago as a city had risen to a population of 
nearly a million and a quarter, with over 85,000 miles 



118 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

of railroad track tributary to it, as against 4,500 miles 
in 1861, the year of Father's first coming to Chicago. 
The prosperity of the Board of Trade as an organi- 
zation, which the general prosperity and measures of 
reform had given it, placed the organization in such 
financial shape that it began the retirement of its 
bonds which had been previously issued for the pur- 
pose of erecting the fine structure which has ever 
since been the home of the Exchange. $50,000 of 
the bonds were thus retired during this administra- 
tion, and this set the pace for additional retirements in 
equal amounts during the following years. 

In addition to its being the principal grain ex- 
change in the world, the Board of Trade exercises* a 
potent influence as one of the most important organi- 
zations in the country. In this year it exerted its 
tremendous influence with its endorsement of the In- 
terstate Commerce Law, which soon became of very 
great benefit to the people through the medium of 
the Interstate Commerce Commission which that law 
created. The Board also took a strong stand on the 
currency situation of the country, and against the 
silver agitation, which was then being promulgated 
about the country. It was in connection with this agi- 
tation that my father wrote an able paper upon the 
currency question which was published in pamphlet 
form and widely distributed, and this paper, together 
with his several inaugural addresses touching upon 
the important issues of the nation, the city and the 
Board of Trade, are frequently even at this late day 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 119 

and long after his demise, brought forth as platform 
principles at the different Board of Trade elections. 
The Board therefore, became very influential in the 
nation, and deference was paid to the stand which it 
took upon all issues, for which issues, my father was 
generally responsible. The Board also in this year 
did effective work in securing the deepening of the 
Chicago River, and by a general petition it addressed 
the Congress of the United States for the improve- 
ment of the Mississippi River. It also did much to 
establish reciprocity in the trade relations between this 
country and South America, and to bring into nearer 
commercial relations the people of all the countries of 
the two Americas. 

Another incubus which fastened itself upon the 
Board of Trade and against which Father directed 
his attention during his first administration was the 
elevator monopoly. The elevator men as public ware- 
housemen and as the custodians of grain belonging to 
different merchants occupied a position of high trust, 
which they took advantage of to the detriment of their 
patrons. Unjust discrimination and classification in 
grain began to be practiced, and the elevators, besides 
being the depository of grain for others, entered the 
trade for themselves and owned and housed grain of 
their own, contrary to the established principle of 
the relation between warehousemen and merchants. 
Father, therefore, opened fire upon the elevators with 
the same ardor that he did upon the bucket-shops, 
under the contention that elevators could not buy, sell, 



120 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

clean, mix, receive or ship grain, except for others 
than themselves. To get at the root of the trouble, 
the drastic measure was inaugurated of excluding ele- 
vator men from membership on the Board. The ques- 
tion finally became one of judicial determination and 
Judge Tuley accordingly decided against the ele- 
vators, and confined them to the performance of their 
duties as public custodians of grain and against their 
position as traders in the commodity. It seems that 
Father's fire was directed more particularly against 
the Armour elevator interests, undoubtedly for the 
reason that these interests were more justly the sub- 
ject of criticism and condemnation. These interests 
went so far as issuing illegal warehouse receipts upon 
property which did not really exist, but was supposed 
to be stored within their elevators. Warehouse re- 
ceipts for wheat are bankable collateral, as they repre- 
sent property as good as gold, so that if they can be 
turned out fradulently and without property behind 
them, they make bank accommodations possible to the 
elevator owner who is hard up, which would not be 
possible if the actual possession of property were 
necessary. My father kept hot on the trail of P. D. 
Armour until he lost the scent, and it is said that Mr. 
Armour was more afraid of him than any other man. 
It was natural as a result of my father's warlike 
attitude, that the displeasure and hostility of the united 
elevator interests should be invoked against him, so 
that whenever the Board of Trade members wished 
him to head the administration ticket at any election, 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 121 

it was a natural result that the opposition ticket if any, 
should be the one known as the "Elevator Ticket." At 
the end of his first administration, which had been re- 
sponsible for such genuine and far-reaching reforms, 
it was only logical and inevitable that he should be 
asked to run again for the office; which he did, with 
the result that he was again elected in January, 1891. 
His second year was not as conspicuous for new re- 
forms as it was for the continued and unremitting 
prosecution of the reforms already begun. The war- 
fare on the bucket-shops was continued and new 
methods were adopted from time to time to outflank 
them. 

Among other things done in this connection, was 
securing official declaration from the United States 
Post Office Department that all mail matter coming 
from and directed to bucket-shops was illegal mail 
matter, so that bucket-shops were consequently de- 
prived of the privilege of the mail service. In this 
year the telegraph instruments were installed again 
on the floor of the Exchange, under proper restric- 
tions as to their use. The rules of the Board, many of 
which had grown into disuse, were revived and were 
rigidly enforced. As the President of the Exchange, 
my father was as rigid a disciplinarian as he would have 
been had he been running a military school. He ap- 
plied the lash to big and little alike. He enforced 
rigidly the rule that there should be no trading after 
the closing hour of the Exchange, and he opposed 
most strenuously the illegal practice of puts and calls, 



122 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

and for this reason he became unpopular with the 
scalpers. 

At the close of 1891, his second term, and as the 
result of there having been so strong a man at the 
helm, the skies had cleared about the Board of Trade 
horizon. He felt that he had done his duty to his fel- 
low members, and that there was no further need of 
his accepting the office again, and he did not therefore, 
allow the presentation of his name, and so was able to 
give his time to the World's Fair matters, which were 
then beginning to absorb his attention. 

Some one had truly said : 

"When the cat's away 
The mice will play." 

and such proved to be the case in the next three years 
of the Board of Trade history during my father's 
retirement. The bucket-shops seemed to take on life 
again and the trade was threatened again with this 
old time spectre in formidable proportions, and the 
elevator men also had grown bold and sought to domi- 
nate the Board of Trade. As the result of these re- 
turning conditions, the logical candidate for President 
— my father — was again put forward, and for the 
third time he was elected to the office to serve during 
the year 1895. This was a bad year in the commercial 
world as the great panic of 1893 had not entirely dis- 
appeared. Prosperity had not yet again begun to 
declare itself. The currency situation in the country 
was uncertain, and therefore unsettled all business 
conditions. The price of corn was the lowest in the 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 123 

history of the country since 1880, as also was the price 
of wheat, and when these two mainstays get down to 
such low levels, one need look for no further sign of 
distressful conditions. Crops were all larger than 
usual but prices lower. A farmer's wife could sell 
a dozen of eggs for almost as much as he could get 
for a bushel of wheat, for wheat had gotten down to 
the low level of 25 cents a bushel. The conditions at 
home and abroad which Father had to face upon 
entering his third term as President, and the purposes 
of his coming administration as the corrective of bad 
conditions, are well set forth in his inaugural address 
of that year, which I can do no better than to embody 
herein, not only for the subject matter therein con- 
tained, but also to display as a feature of this bio- 
graphy, the forcefulness of his manner of expression, 
and the terseness and pure style of his diction. As 
far as they go, his addresses serve as his own auto- 
biography. 

"In accepting for a third term the office to which you have 
elected me, I thank you for the expression of your continued 
confidence, while I shrink from the responsibilities involved. 
I can only hope that at the end of my term you will let a 
record of good intentions palliate whatever failure there may 
be on my part to satisfy your expectations." 

"This Board of Trade has always been a leading and influ- 
ential factor in the commerce of the country. Its prosperity 
and continued ascendency are essential to the progress of 
this city and the expansion of the trade of the great North- 
west. As we bear our share of the burdens and disasters that 
befall the country, we may also claim our right to participate 
in the general prosperity when fortune smiles again. If there 



124 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

is any inherent reason why we may not so participate, let us 
find it out and remove the cause." 

"The silver panic of 1893 prostrated every branch of business 
and paralyzed all enterprises. But the business of this Board 
has also suffered from evils distinctly local and that do not 
operate elsewhere. Bucket-shop dealing has so honeycombed 
the trade as to seem irradicable, though this association is 
furnishing to bucket-shops that without which they never could 
have started and without which they cannot exist. The capital 
in trade of bucket-shops is official continuous quotations which 
you only can supply. Business would go on in your exchange 
if no quotations ever left the floor, but no bucket-shop can 
run an instant without your quotations. To be of value enough 
to bucket-shops to attract victims, the quotations must be not 
only continuous but official. However simple-minded a man 
must be who ventures in a bucket-shop, he will not long trust 
himself to the tender mercies of swindlers who could and 
would make figures to suit themselves in robbing their patrons. 
The various gambling devices in pool rooms or elsewhere in 
this city should not be confounded with bucket-shop uses of 
your quotations. While you permit additional attraction to the 
habitues of gambling resorts which add nothing to your credit, 
the greatest wrong is done throughout the country where 
patrons fail to distinguish between the bucket-shop thieves 
and honorable business establishments. The city gambler sees 
only a wager and may be as willing to bet on your quotations 
as on anything else that has an uncertain future. The cus- 
tomers of country bucket-shops, on the other hand, believe 
their transactions are legitimate and are made on the Chicago 
Board of Trade. This Board once tried the experiment of 
discontinuing supplies to bucket-shops. Was your business 
better while that experiment was operating, or since it has 
been discontinued? I ask you for an expression on this sub- 
ject at this meeting, and recommend that your Directors be 
authorized to discontinue the present plan of supplying con- 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 125 

tinuous official quotations of our markets. I am aware of 
the possible embarrassment of again making this arrangement 
acceptable, owing to the unequal use of private telegraph wires 
by members, but think I may pledge the Directory that the dis- 
cretion, if given them, will not be used to your disadvantage." 
"Next to the incubus of the bucket-shops is the tyranny of 
the elevator monopoly, which, from a fair and legitimate 
beginning, has grown to such proportions within your Associ- 
ation as to threaten its very existence. And it is a broader 
question than the survival of the fittest among groups of 
business men and interests in this Exchange. It concerns every 
merchant and common carrier engaged in the great commerce 
of this city, and every farmer who contributes to make that 
commerce possible. The warehousing of grain is only an inci- 
dent in its transit from producer to consumer. Its natural 
and healthy function is in accepting on storage the overflow 
of the season of freest movements that the channels of com- 
merce may not be clogged or obstructed, and safely caring 
for the same while waiting a demand. But in Chicago the 
accumulation and storage of grain has come to be the chief 
end and aim of potential and dominating forces. The alliance 
between railroads and elevators has resulted in reaching out 
after millions of bushels not naturally tributary to us, and 
when gathered here preventing it by such tricks of trade as 
you are familiar with from ever getting away again as long as 
storage can be collected on it. This policy has resulted in 
such congestion of grain here as to depress prices to the lowest 
point in history. For it is not the Chicago stock alone that 
this market has to carry. Its very volume invites dealers 
in every market in the world to make sales here against hold- 
ings elsewhere, which they would not dare to do but for 
abnormal accumulations brought and held here by unnatural 
means. Cargoes of wheat bought on European account in 
Australia, India, Russia and Argentina, as well as stocks at 
all other points of accumulation, are sold against here, so that 



126 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

our market feels the weight of the entire world's surplus. 
This condition is only made possible by the enormous and 
unnatural hoard brought and retained here to satisfy the 
avarice of half a dozen corporations the largest of which is 
owned in London." 

"A system that permits the proprietors of public 
elevators, directly or indirectly, to deal in the property 
of which they are custodians is essentially immoral. The 
temptation to reserve for themselves the best of a grade is 
one to which the law never contemplated that they should be 
subjected. Indeed, the principal motive of the warehouse 
law was to prevent their ownership or control of grain in 
public warehouses. Yet it is notorious that during the past 
year the proprietors of elevators have had for sale and have 
sold millions of bushels of grain at a large premium, not one 
cent of which in equity belonged to them. The grain bought 
elsewhere by elevator proprietors is promptly sold here to 
you for some future delivery, so they become the custodians 
of your property, which, however, you can only get on pay- 
ment of such premiums as the urgency of the demand may 
enable them to exact. It is an unwelcome task for me to 
criticise the methods of any class of our members, but this is 
an occasion for plain speech and honest, earnest efforts to 
restore to this Association its vanishing glory and traditions." 

"The elevator monopoly is the same blight on legitimate 
business that anti-option legislation would have been if enacted. 
The old-time open competition of thousands has been super- 
seded by new conditions under which each railroad terminat- 
ing in Chicago is practically controlled by a single buyer. 
Special rates are made to favored individuals who have the 
further advantage of elevator control, so that rates charged 
to the public are rebated to themselves, thus enabling them to 
outbid or undersell all competitors. This charge of three- 
quarters of a cent per bushel for the first term of storage 
is retained only as a protection to elevator managers against 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 127 

the competition of legitimate dealers in grain. It is a charge 
that you cannot avoid, but which is ignored by them in their 
own transactions, thus forcing every one to sell to or buy of 
them. The fact that this charge is not bona-fide, but only a 
foil to competition, proves that it is unjust and should be 
abolished. While elevator proprietors are willing to pay one 
cent per bushel more for grain 'to go to store' in their own 
warehouses than the market price of the same grain in store 
(and subject to the charge of three-quarters of a cent per 
bushel), is conclusive that the first storage charge is not legiti- 
mate, and also that the subsequent terms of storage are unduly 
profitable. The charge for the transfer of grain from cars 
to vessels, a distance of perhaps 100 feet, is greater than the 
average rate of freight, during the past season, from Chicago 
to Buffalo. The same grain is transferred on track by the 
railroads themselves from western to eastern cars for nothing." 
"A proper solution of our difficulties must include facilities 
by railroads entering here for free warehousing of grain on 
arrival, and fair rates for storage on naturally acquired accu- 
mulations. The device of collecting storage in advance of 
delivery of grain has supplied largely increased capital to 
elevator proprietors to be used against you in the unequal 
competition for business. There is no legal or moral right 
in this practice, and it should be terminated altogether. Ware- 
house receipts for grain are made current by your rules. 
These rules are absolutely binding on every buyer in your 
market whether he is a member of your Board or not. It 
therefore behooves you to protect the innocent purchaser by 
every safeguard within your power. It is not only your right 
but your imperative duty to have such an oversight of elevator 
management as will assure to holders of warehouse receipts 
made regular by your rules that their receipts represent not 
only property, but uncontaminated grades and condition. In 
providing the requisites for regular receipts, it may be pos- 
sible to correct some of the abuses complained of, as well as 



128 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

give adequate security to holders of warehouse receipts. But 
the Legislature must be appealed to to so amend the ware- 
house law as to make it impossible for public warehousemen to 
be also dealers in grain ; and railroad companies having termi- 
nals here should be required to warehouse their grain on 
arrival as they do every other species of merchandise. With 
this purpose in view, I recommend the appointment of a com- 
mittee on legislation outside the Board of Directors to promote 
the necessary legislation at Springfield." 

"The uniformity and integrity of the inspection of grain 
is of paramount importance to the members of this Association. 
It has been placed by the State entirely beyond our control, 
and so long as it is fairly conducted we would not have it 
otherwise. Thus far there has been little to complain of, but 
there is and always will be danger of politics dominating the 
department to the detriment and demoralization of the service. 
I therefore earnestly recommend that you direct your efforts 
toward such a modification of the law as will place the depart- 
ment under Civil Service Reform rules. There should be no 
appointments except for merit and no removal except for 
cause. There can be no question of the necessity and justice 
of this proposition. An inspector of grain in fixing its grade 
thereby determines its value, a trust that should not be confided 
to men who are not skilled in their calling." 

"Zeal in partisan campaign work does not qutlify men for 
this occupation, and none should ever be employed who can- 
not pass such an examination as only a ripe experience will 
prepare them for." 

"Trading in privileges has become so common outside of 
Exchange hours as to impair the good name of the Associ- 
ation. These transactions are outside the law and are dis- 
tinctly obnoxious to your own rules. They cannot be enforced 
either in the courts or under the rules of this Board, and 
anyone can sue at any time and recover for even consequential 
losses. The Illinois statute prescribes penalties of fine and 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 129 

imprisonment for making such contracts, and specifically 
declares that all such contracts 'shall be considered gambling 
contracts and shall be void.' It is claimed that the dull state 
of trade makes these transactions necessary, but do they not 
contribute to an important extent to the very stagnation you 
complain of? By coopering prices within a narrow limit 
day after day, do you not discourage business that you would 
count on in a free and unrestricted market ? The risks assumed 
by you as commission merchants are beyond computation, and 
more than all else in making these transactions we violate the 
law. I sincerely urge that means may be taken to put an 
end to the practice at once." 

"No reputable citizen requires to be admonished to obey 
the laws made necessary for the well being and order of the 
community, but there is a more immediate and direct obli- 
gation upon members of this Board to fidelity to its rules, for 
every member has signed his name to a solemn compact in 
these words: 'We, the undersigned, members of the Board of 
Trade of the City of Chicago, do, by our respective signatures 
and by virtue of our membership in said corporatiton, hereby 
mutually agree and covenant with each other, and with the 
said corporation, that we will in our actions and dealings with 
each other, and the said corporation, *be in all respects, gov- 
erned by and respect the Rules, Regulations and By-Laws of 
said corporation, as they now exist, or as they may be here- 
after modified, altered or amended/ 

"No more serious or valid contract can be signed by any 
one. Any violation of a rule of this Board by a member is 
an act of bad faith to each one of his associates, and a dis- 
credit to the fair name of the Association. It is the highest 
duty of every one of you to understand your rules and assist 
your officers in maintaining them. Your individual and hearty 
cooperation is necessary, and I pledge the officers you have 
chosen to their full measure of duty." 

"In an Exchange of such importance as ours, there is and 



130 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

must be room for all. No single or selfish interest must be 
permitted to dominate, but absolute fairness must prevail. 
What is best for the whole Board is best for each one of us, 
and let us unite in raising higher and even higher our ideal, 
until the Chicago Board of Trade shall be the standard of 
integrity and commercial ethics wherever known." 

My father undertook the fight against the railroads 
because of their unjust discrimination between patrons 
who were favored and those who were not. His con- 
tention is summed up in a report to the Board, of a 
committee of which he was the chairman, in whose 
behalf he declared as follows : 

"Your committee insists upon the observance on the part 
of common carriers of their proper attitude to the public, 
namely : that these lines derive their franchise from the people, 
and to the people without discrimination they owe an equitable 
distribution and allotment of transportation privileges, includ- 
ing rates, conveniences and facilities for business at terminal 
points ; while your committee concedes that transportation lines 
are entitled to reasonable compensation for services rendered, 
they are not entitled directly or indirectly by any ingenious 
system of accounts to excess rates." 

In looking backward from the present day scene 
of Harrimanism, Father's attitude seems at least 
prophetic. In continuing the fight on bucket-shops, 
rigid strictures were placed upon membership in the 
Board of Trade, which admitted no bucket-shops to 
the privilege of membership, and any member or firm 
found guilty of bucket-shopping, directly or indirectly, 
was suspended from membership; also the rigid en- 
forcements of the laws of Illinois were invoked against 
the grain elevators as a result of which nine licenses 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 131 

were revoked by the Warehouse Commissioner of the 
State. 

When his third term of office drew near to a close, 
the usual division of sentiment took place, with the 
active members of the Board on one side — who in- 
sisted upon Father again for their President, and the 
Armour crowd, the elevator men, and the millionaire 
members of the Board upon the other side with their 
candidate. The election of January, 1896, therefore, 
was the hottest in the history of the Board of Trade ; 
and it is noteworthy in this connection that Father 
gave the situation no attention whatsoever, but allowed 
matters to take their own course. On the other hand, 
the opposing party organized a most vigorous cam- 
paign. In this way inactive members were brought 
even from as remote points as Buffalo to come and 
cast their vote in favor of the elevator monopoly and 
the bucket-shop plague. Carriages were sent out all 
over the city to bring in delinquent members, who never 
attended the regular sessions, purely for the purpose 
of voting, all of which, however, were to naught, for 
when the polls were closed and the votes counted it 
was known that Father had received 777 votes, as 
against 562 votes for his opponent. 

He therefore entered upon his duties for the fourth 
time, upon his own platform as he set it forth in his 
inaugural address of that year, which it is well to 
incorporate in this story at this point, calling especial 
attention to his remarks upon the silver question. 



132 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 




Chicago Tribune cartoon upon the occasion of the election of 
William T. Baker to his fourth term as president 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 133 

"Once again it is my privilege to thank you for the honor 
you have conferred upon me. This renewed expression of 
your confidence and esteem is all the recompense I ask for 
such service as I shall be able to render your Association for 
another year." 

"On the beginning of this new year I think we are justified 
in anticipating better times and more prosperous business. 
But there are three obstacles that confront us, two of which 
are peculiar to ourselves but from which the entire grain trade 
both East and West is suffering, and the other of which con- 
cerns not us alone but every one who lives or expects to live 
in the United States of America. I refer to the bucket-shop 
iniquity, the elevator monopoly and the free-silver lunacy. 
The first two of these evils are local in their origin, though 
widespread in their effects, and their cure must depend mainly 
on ourselves. The last can be averted only by the united 
efforts of business men, laboring men and professional men 
of the entire country, and in this we may take a leading part." 

"Your Board of Directors during the past year has been 
united in its purpose to suppress bucket-shops and bucket-shop- 
ping, and distinct progress has been made. All that has 
been attempted has borne some fruit, and it is likely that 
future operations may be facilitated by a more general appre- 
ciation by the community of what bucket-shops really are. It 
is beginning to dawn upon the comprehension of the public 
that every one connected with the bucket-shops are thieves 
and swindlers, and the man who is guilty of bucket-shop prac- 
tices can no longer shield himself under the cloak of respecta- 
bility. It would be obviously improper to indicate in detail 
what may be proposed, but I can assure you that no effort 
will be spared to eradicate this evil. Membership in this 
Board will not shield any one if found guilty, for it must be 
our highest aim to keep the roster of our members above sus- 
picion, to make it, in fact, a roll of honor." 

"While something has been accomplished toward improving 



134 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

the status of the elevator question, there is much remaining 
to be done. The law's delay has been invoked against you, 
not with the hope of ultimate success, but to weary you and 
to tire you out. The recent court decision did not touch the 
merits of our cases, which will be pressed with such vigor as 
your Directors are capable of, and an early decision is hoped 
for. There is some misapprehension apparent outside this 
Board as to the relation of elevator companies to the general 
business of the city. They claim to be public benefactors, in 
that they bring grain in large amounts to this city that would 
otherwise go elsewhere. This is said to furnish employment 
to more banking capital and keep up the rate of interest and to 
give business to railroads and insurance companies. But we 
know that half a dozen firms and corporations have a monopoly 
of the business. They cannot bring grain here that is not 
naturally tributary to us, except cut rates of freight denied 
the general public and forbidden by law. Nearly every rail- 
road terminating here has some favored elevator system under 
its protection, the proprietors of which are given such profit- 
able concessions as to enable them to control the business. If 
the contention of this Board is sustained each railroad will 
have a host of competing patrons instead of one ; bankers will 
have a thousand active accounts instead of the small group of 
large borrowers who are now able to combine and dictate 
rates, while the short rate card of insurance offices will again 
come into use." 

"But the real question is not whether it may add to 
the traffic of railroads or increase the profits of bank- 
ing or insurance capital, but whether it is right for public 
custodians of grain to be at the same time dealers in grain and 
enabled to select and set aside for their own purposes the best 
of what may come under their charge. No objection is made 
to all the grain coming to Chicago that can be legitimately 
brought here, but it is against public policy, t and is not the 
legitimate function of a public warehouseman, operating under 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 135 

a license from the State and the rules of this Board, to be 
so engaged. It is the dual capacity that we object to and that 
is prohibited by law. Last spring the quality of millions of 
bushels of grain stored in public warehouses was aspersed by 
interested speculators. This Board, through its officers, sought 
to have such an investigation made as would refute the slander 
against grain stored in public warehouses and restore the 
confidence of buyers and holders of property made regular by 
our rules. But every elevator proprietor in Chicago joined in 
refusing permission to your representatives to make that neces- 
sary and wholesome examination. They knew the grain was 
above the average in quality and condition but were unwilling 
to have it inspected in order to increase the carrying charges. 
The present monopoly is against everything and everybody 
but themselves." 

"By the rankest and most brazen manipulation they seek 
to control the price and movement of our commodities and 
force every buyer and every seller to their terms. A year 
ago they were selling Spring Wheat at 5 or 6 cents premium. 
Now they are selling Winter Wheat at a like premium, while 
they have not been the owners of either. While they are 
nominally the custodians of your property they are able in 
violation of the laws of the State, to set aside and sell at a 
premium millions of bushels every year, not owned by them 
but in their custody as warehousemen. Would any court 
permit a trustee of an estate to thus handle trust funds for 
his own advantage? This gain is not the legitimate property 
of a public warehouseman. It belongs to you or whoever 
owns the grain. The lawful profit of the business of public 
warehousing has been attractive enough to create an enormous 
system of elevators here. If the business has been overdone it 
is due to the cupidity of those engaged in it. This Board 
will cheerfully concede a fair return on capital actually 
employed in lawful operation of elevators, but will forever 
resist the use of its machinery for unjust or illegal practices. 



136 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

If it is possible to close the courts against us we have remedies 
within our own Association that neither money nor influence 
can buy." 

"The pulse of business is sought in the great exchanges of 
the country and nowhere is it more sensitive than in this 
Board of Trade. Whatever affects the weal or woe of the 
commerce of this country is immediately reflected here, so 
that no class of business men can have greater interest than 
we in the impending crisis in national finances." 

"All our internal differences are small or of passing import- 
ance compared with the one great question whether the credit 
of the nation is to be sacrificed through the ignorance or 
demagoguery of Congress. Between the rapacity of the mine 
owners, who among their other assets are able to schedule 
Senators of the United States, and the zeal of politicians whose 
patriotism is bounded by their partisanship, we are in constant 
danger of drifting to a silver basis. The treasury is forced 
to dubious expedients in order to postpone the calamity. 
These expedients are likely to be less effectual and more 
embarrassing as our stock of gold is drawn upon for export, 
and no matter what party may control the government, there 
can be but one final result from present conditions. Our stock 
of gold is not unlimited, and the drain upon it will never per- 
manently cease until we turn from the blind fatuity of forcing 
the circulation of a good dollar and a bad dollar side by side 
on equal terms." 

"In our transactions on 'Change No. 2, Spring Wheat and 
No. 2; Red Winter Wheat are each a legal tender on contracts. 
We have the double standard, and for years past we have seen 
that it is the kind that has least commercial value that weighs 
upon the market. The better or more valuable grade dis- 
appears — is either hoarded or shipped away, while the cheaper 
or less desirable kind remains to plague us. This is a forcible 
though familiar illustration of the operation of the Gresham 
law, the law that never in the world's history has failed to 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 137 

operate when the money of the country has a varying or 
unequal standard. We encourage the speedy and ceaseless 
operation of this law by a system of legislation which, if 
intended to drive gold from circulation, could not have been 
more ingeniously devised." 

"In order to maintain the credit of the government by 
keeping parity between gold and silver as required by law, the 
treasury must redeem greenbacks and Sherman notes in gold, 
and this redemption is accompanied by the absurd requirement 
that such money must be paid out again and kept in circula- 
tion, to be again and again redeemed in gold. This imbecile 
legislative contrivance has placed us at the mercy of foreign 
enemies or alien speculators in bullion, and recent events 
have shown us that such enemies and speculators know their 
advantage and are not slow to profit by our weakness. There 
is but one remedy for this deplorable condition of affairs. Pro- 
vision must be made for the permanent retirement of the five 
hundred millions of greenbacks and Sherman notes. Long 
time bonds bearing a low rate of interest and payable in gold 
should be authorized for this purpose, and if such bonds were 
permitted to be used by national banks as security for circu- 
lation redeemable in gold, they would be quickly absorbed, 
and the transition would be easily and safely made; all the 
hoarded gold in the country would immediately come back 
into circulation and this country would enter upon an era 
of unexampled prosperity. There is no politics in this propo- 
sition. There are only partisanship, ignorance and greed 
opposed to it. There should be patriotism enough in Congress 
to take this, the only wise course to restore American credit 
and invite the capital of the world to American enterprises. It 
would restore confidence and start the wheels of every mill 
and give employment to all the unemployed, and labor would 
continue to be paid in money worth 100 cents on the dollar." 

"The prospect of any intelligent legislation is at this time 
doubtful, but it is nevertheless the duty of every business man 



138 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

who knows the value of credit in business enterprises, and of 
every citizen who cherishes the honor of his country to cry 
out in protest against the puerility of Congress. No man who 
represents an honest and intelligent constituency in either 
house of Congress who fails in his duty on this supreme 
question can look for future preferment. But the next elec- 
tion is a long way off. We should not wait to get at them 
with our votes, for delay may mean ruin to the business of 
the country. Let every one of us by letter or petition or in 
any way in which we can make our influence felt, do what we 
may to secure this currency reform and save the country from 
humiliation and disgrace. This Board of Trade controlling 
the commerce of the Northwest can serve no higher purpose 
than to lead in this crusade in behalf of the national honor 
as it has always led in patriotic endeavor." 

It will be remembered in this connection, that con- 
temporaneously with his serving as President of the 
Board of Trade during his last three terms, my father 
was likewise President of the Civic Federation, the 
co-operation of which organization he was therefore 
always able to command in putting down infractions 
of law and morality in connection with the grain trade. 
His fourth administration continued its crusade 
against the bucket-shops and the elevator iniquities, 
and developed new reforms. The history of this year 
was largely a repetition of the year preceding it, and it 
ended with much good accomplished, and with the 
sentiment prevailing as usual among the members of 
the Board that he must again and for the fifth time 
be the President of the organization. In fact, it is 
likely that had he been willing, he would have been 
elected President of the Board of Trade for the rest 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 139 

of his life. Never in the history of the Board had 
any one member been elected its President for a fifth 
time, or even a fourth time, and my father, therefore, 
stands alone in its history with this unique honor rest- 
ing upon him. He was elected in January, 1897, to 
serve for that year. So unusual was the distinction 
of a fifth term that it called forth editorials from the 
leading press of the city, but I call particular attention 
to that in the Times Herald of January 13, 1897, as 
follows : 

"For the fifth time Mr. William T. Baker has been called 
to the presidency of the Board of Trade, an honor so unusual 
and so unprecedented that it is in itself conclusive proof of 
the value the members of the board place upon the services 
of their distinguished associate. And, indeed, not only in the 
eyes of his fellow members, but in the eyes of his fellow 
citizens, President Baker is deserving of this high esteem. He 
has stood before the community as a man faithful in the dis- 
charge of the duties of citizenship, zealous for every good 
work and reform, and ever keeping in mind the highest civil 
ideals of business, jealous to the quick of everything that 
tends to the degradation of the honorable name of merchant." 

"Animated by such feelings, he has sought to purge the 
floor of the great mart of the rapacious and the dishonest 
of mercantile welshers and of those who make victims of their 
patrons. The records of the board show how well he has suc- 
ceeded, and how dangerous to themselves it is for the tricky 
and the unscrupulous to perpetrate their frauds on the floor 
of the exchange." 

"In his annual address on Monday President Baker re- 
viewed some of the reforms that had been accomplished in the 
past and mentioned others that were yet to be accomplished." 

"The first battle with the elevator monopoly has resulted 



140 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

in, a legal victory that in all probability will be final. This 
has been the chief gain of the year. The war against the 
bucket-shops still continues, but President Baker promises that 
the crusade against those swindling gambling shops shall con- 
tinue until success is achieved." 

"Another subject of vital importance to the board is the 
system of grain inspection and the methods of appointing grain 
inspectors. Gradually the politicians have been getting a greater 
and greater hold on this department, and ward heelers and 
political dependents have found their way to the pay rolls. This 
is too serious a matter to be lightly passed over, and it is recom- 
mended that an effort be made to place the inspection depart- 
ment under civil service rules. If this is refused by the 
Legislature the board should assert its chartered rights and 
have an inspection system of its own." 

"The Times-Herald congratulates President Baker on his 
re-election and upon the honorable career that has been 
crowned with this distinction. Long may he illustrate by pre- 
cept and example the highest standards of commercial 
morality !" 

As setting forth concisely his work of the preceding 
year, and the hopes and purposes of his administration 
for the year to come, and his pronounced convictions 
upon currency reform, I will add here his fifth and 
last inaugural address as a part of his life's story: 

"In accepting the office to which you have a fifth time 
elected me, I acknowledge the obligation due you for the 
unusual honor, and shall endeavor to show my appreciation of 
it by such fidelity and care for the interests of this Board as 
my limitations will permit." 

"I congratulate the members of this board on a fairly pros- 
perous business during the past year, and on the prospects of 
still better times to come. The year has been marked by most 
alarming vicissitudes in all branches of business in this country, 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 141 

and I therefore felicitate you that failures have been almost 
unknown among us, and that you have closed the year 
generally with a balance on the right side of the ledger. I 
sincerely hope the improvement in business here is the har- 
binger of prosperity for the whole country, for we can hardly 
expect permanent improvement in which all branches of indus- 
try do not share. We are therefore justified in exerting our 
influence whenever we can do so in the direction of improv- 
ing present conditions, and especially for such congressional 
enactments as will relieve us from the peril that has already 
nearly wrecked the country." 

"Politics and business have become so closely allied that 
we can scarcely discuss business concerns of the first import- 
ance to every one without inviting the imputation of partisan- 
ship. The tendency of our time forbids the hope of such 
an Utopian condition that merely academic discussion of 
National questions will be possible. The people have so long 
been taught that the principal function of government 
is to do something for everybody, that every citizen looks 
to Washington with hope and fear, and it is only by frank 
expressions of business men that vital errors may be avoided. 
We owe it to ourselves, therefore, and to the business com- 
munity of which we are a part, to give vigorous expression 
of our views on business questions on which legislation by 
Congress is likely or desirable. There is no place where such 
questions can be discussed more dispassionately than in this 
Board of Trade, for no member of it is or expects to be a 
beneficiary of any act of Congress further than any citizen 
is benefitted by honest legislation for the public_good^— ^ 

"The currency question is as far from being settled as it has 
been at any time since the repeal of the Sherman Act. All the 
machinery for precipitating the country to a silver basis is 
in perfect order, and ready to operate whenever anything occurs 
to arouse suspicion or start alarm. It is criminal folly for 
business men to lapse into indifference again until the treas- 



142 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

ury surplus approaches the danger line. It is positively mon- 
strous that the whole business fabric of this country and the 
honor and credit of the government should be permitted to 
continue at the mercy of circumstances that may arise at any 
time, and are as sure to arise some time in the future as they 
have already in the recent past. The last election barely 
extinguished the burning fuse that led to the mine, but the 
mine is still there, and the danger, though less imminent, is 
just as great as it always has been since our currency laws 
were enacted. It is the paramount duty of Congress to revise 
these laws, to take the government out of banking business by 
retiring all its demand notes and substituting National bank 
notes redeemable in gold. Practically the only issue in the 
last campaign was the money issue. Familiar questions of 
political economy were either ignored or perfunctorily dis- 
cussed as evidence of party consistency, but the appeal to the 
intelligent electorate was for honest money, and more than 
two millions of voters laid aside their most cherished convic- 
tions in voting with the majority to save the National honor. 
I believe they now have a right to demand that those with 
whom they voted shall be equally patriotic, and put all other 
party questions behind them until the currency question, on 
which they were agreed, is settled and settled forever. The 
people can afford to wait for increased taxation, but they 
cannot afford to wait for that return of confidence which a 
proper reform of our curency laws will bring about, and 
which nothing else in the way of legislation will accomplish." 
"The question between the board and the elevator pro- 
prietors has reached a decision in the Circuit Court in our 
favor on every controverted point. The decision of Judge 
Tuley is so comprehensive and convincing that the elevator 
proprietors can hardly hope to have it reversed by the Supreme 
Court, though they have taken an appeal. I earnestly recom- 
mend that no backward step be taken by this board. There 
has been nothing in the events of the past year to make the 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 143 

elevator monopoly more endurable. Their control of the 
property of which they should be simply guardians or trustees, 
the property which does not belong to them but to the members 
of this board to whom they have sold it, has enabled them 
not only to manipulate prices, but to create intollerable obstruc- 
tions to the free current of commerce which is the most import- 
ant function of this board to foster. The legitimate storage 
charge is no longer a prime consideration with them. Their 
alliance with the railroads and the privilege and immunities 
enjoyed by them on this board enables them to levy tribute on 
producer and consumer alike, while the centralization of the 
control of stocks of grain in store robs the banker and the 
common carrier of the legitimate advantage of competition 
that would come with a restoration of the natural order of 
business. This board has never questioned the right of any 
of its members to deal in grain and store it in their own 
warehouses, but when its members elect to do such business 
they should not at the same time become public warehousemen 
with the stamp of regularity on their warehouse receipts. The 
opportunity to select and sell at a premium the best of a 
grade while offering holders of their receipts the poorest, is 
a manifest injustice and contrary to public policy. The market 
price is always based on the least desirable, while for the better 
qualities such a premium as the necessities or desires of con- 
sumers may warrant, is exacted by the custodians of the prop- 
erty who do not even pretend to be its real owners. The well 
known fact that the poorest quality that is deliverable on con- 
tracts establishes the price of the entire stock in store, and to 
a certain extent depresses the general market, is a constant 
injustice to producers in all the territory Jtrioutary to our 
market. It is an application of the pinciples of the Gresham 
law to the familiar operations of the grain market that must 
be intelligible to anybody." 

'The integrity of the system of grain inspection in 
this district is marked on our exchange, and though 



144 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

we have no voice in the management of the inspec- 
tion department, yet our credit is impaired and our business 
injured by its inefficiency. When the inspection of grain was 
surrendered by this board to the State in compliance with the 
warehouse law, we had reason to expect faithful and uniform 
administration of the service. For many years we had no 
ground for serious complaint, but it has gradually become a 
useful part of machine politics, and ward heelers are crowded 
upon the pay rolls without regard to the technical require- 
ments of the work. The inspection department should be 
petitioned to pass a bill to this end. An effort was made at 
the last meeting of the Legislature to accomplish this but 
failed. If such an act cannot be passed by the present Legis- 
lature, it may be well to consider the propriety of asserting our 
rights under our charter and have our own inspection system." 

"The extermination of bucket-shops should continue to be 
the aim of this board. It is no longer necessary to explain 
their practices to convince the community of their viciousness. 
The public has come to understand their pernicious effects and 
their demoralizing influence. They furnish the most attractive 
gambling hells in every city and village where they can effect 
a lodgment, and are more dangerous to public morals than 
other forms of gambling because of the quasi-respectability 
and immunity from police raids. Their proprietors are without 
exception thieves and swindlers." 

"Bucket-shops and pool-rooms are twin outlaws in nearly 
every State in the Union. Their united corruption fund has 
enabled them to baffle justice by debauchery of the constituted 
authority for the investigation and prosecution of crime, but 
they could not continue in existence a day but for their alliance 
with the Western Union Telegraph Company. That company 
furnishes all the machinery and all the news on which bets are 
laid, and it is the only telegraph company in the United States 
that leases wires for the private use of bucket-shops in swindling 
their patrons. The spectacle of a corporation with a hundred 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 145 

million dollars capital paying dividends gleaned from the vice 
and crime of the country is one to make any American blush. 
Contrast this with the conduct of some of the great news- 
papers of this city, which cannot be hired to print the harmless 
appearing advertisements of bucket-shops. It may be said 
that a great commercial organization like this has no need to 
concern itself with questions of morals, but the ethics of busi- 
ness are based on a high standard of commercial morality, 
which it is our duty to preach and to practice. When we 
see our efforts to rid ourselves of the incubus of bucket-shops 
embarrassed by such a condition as is here outlined, we find 
our self-interest exalted by our patriotic duty as citizens in 
striking down a wrong. The crusade in which we have been 
so long engaged will not cease. Complete success will, how- 
ever, be hastened by our maintaining among ourselves an 
unimpeachable standard of business honor. Our rules are 
based on such a standard, and if any member is unfaithful 
to them, it is your duty, individually, to expose the derelict 
and aid your officers in purging your membership of any who 
are found unworthy to enjoy its privileges." 

"Let us enter upon the new year with a renewed pledge of 
loyalty to this great exchange and a determination to keep 
its honor above suspicion, so that our membership in it may 
be a source of pride and gratification to us and to our children." 

It was in this last term that Governor Tanner of the 
State of Illinois and the Board of Trade came 
into conflict. The Governor had made a good 
deal of money on the Board of^Trade- through 
some of his brokers, which fact he did not deplore, 
but he did hold resentment against the Board 
of Trade for an attack made upon him in connec- 
tion with standing in with the crooked element 
and vetoing certain legislation which the Board 



146 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 




THE BOARD OF TRADE-GO V. TANNER'S "MONTE CARLO "-AS SEEN BY FURNISS. 



Illustrating the Governor's hostility to President Baker. 
Chicago Tribune cartoon of June 8, 1897. 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 147 

of Trade had championed for the purpose of puri- 
fying the trade of the evil things which beset it. 
This led the Governor in an interview with a reporter 
of the Tribune to say that "The Chicago Board of 
Trade was the biggest gambling place on earth, Monte 
Carlo not excepted. I retort, that if Mr. Baker or 
any of his friends so desire I can give proof, facts and 
figures to substantiate what I said, and now empha- 
size in that respect." The Governor's tirade was em- 
bodied in a personal attack upon Father as the official 
head of the organization. It resulted in an amusing 
cartoon being published of Chicago's Temple of Com- 
merce which is interesting enough to be reproduced 
in this book. 

The year 1897 was a most prosperous one for the 
Board of Trade. In this year Father succeeded in 
getting the Post Office Department to order the word 
"fraudulent" stamped on all letters sent to bucket- 
shops, so that no bucket-shops closed up in conse- 
quence, while 58 were closed by fraud orders, 26 by 
indictments, and 26 grew weary of the struggle and 
went out of business. The liquidation throughout the 
country had ceased and the great depression was at 
an end. The stocks and goods of all merchants were 
low, and the demand for new goods was bi\isk, which 
stimulated industry and trade in every channel. As 
high prices obtained more and more for the cereals, 
the price of silver went down, which did much to 
cure the people of the silver heresy that had been 
during the preceding years disturbing financial con- 



148 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

ditions so disastrously. The price of wheat soaring 
above a dollar, and the great Leiter wheat corner were 
the principal Board of Trade events that will go down 
in its history for that year. 

The Chicago Board of Trade is a member of 
the National Board of Trade which meets each year in 
the different cities. My father was the delegate to the 
National Board of Trade in the years of 1882-83-87- 
88-89. He was most active in debate and had very 
pronounced views on all subjects coming before that 
body bearing upon the then current questions of the 
day. The records show that he addressed the meeting 
in 1882 upon the subject of the Hawaiian Treaty, 
Postal Telegraph, and the Shipping question, in 
Washington. In 1887 in Washington he addressed 
the meeting on the subject of the Agricultural Bureau 
Reports, Postal Telegraph, the Shipping question, the 
Silver question and the Tariff. In 1888 in Chicago 
he spoke upon the subject of the Lard adulterations 
and Crop bulletins, and again in the same year in 
Washington he spoke on Agricultural Statistics, 
River and Harbor Improvements, the Shipping ques- 
tion, Finance and Currency, and Tariff Reform. At 
Louisville in 1889 he discussed the National Clearing 
House, the Independent Telegraph Company, the 
Shipping bill, and Penny postage. 

Although my father commanded the universal re- 
spect of the Board of Trade members by virtue of his 
distinguished ability and his high character, yet 
it was accorded to him in an unusual way 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 149 

not given to other men who might have been 
entitled to equal respect. Great deference was 
paid to his personal feelings and pleasure in 
the same way that a good boy pays deference to 
his parents. There are occasions on the Board of 
Trade, notably on New Year's Day when the crowd 
breaks loose and indulges in antics such as they used to 
do when they were school boys. Flour sacks and grain 
sacks are thrown at each other, and hats knocked off, 
but if in the midst of such pandemonium, Father 
would happen to come in upon the floor of the Ex- 
change, the racket would cease immediately, and busi- 
ness would go on peacefully again just as though the 
members were all good little boys who had turned to 
their books again when the teacher came in sight. 

One of the strongest points of my father's char- 
acter was his instinctive sense of justice. This was 
recognized in a most practical way on the Board of 
Trade, where, during the later years of his life, he 
was looked upon as a tribunal of justice and the court 
of last resort, before whom disputing members of the 
Board of Trade would lay their grievances and dis- 
putes. He was by common consent, set up as their 
judge and jury and they invariably referred their mat- 
ters to him and accepted his decision as fklal. Since 
his death a special committee of the-FToard of Trade 
has acted in this capacity. I think no higher compli- 
ment can be paid a man than to have him involuntarily 
made the referee of disputes where great sums of 
money and friendships are inovlved. When left to 



150 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

him they always knew that his determination of their 
equities would be founded upon the most rigid hon- 
esty and superlative wisdom. 

The administration of his fifth term came to its 
end, and thus ended his official connection with the 
management of the Board of Trade, although his suc- 
cessors in office looked largely to him for advice and 
guidance as the Nestor and oracle among their coun- 
sellors. The members of the Board will always look 
back with affection and regard for their great leader, 
who will always appear to them as the Napoleon who 
came upon the scene at the time of a great crisis, 
did his duty, fought their fights, and then re- 
tired with the honor and respect of all. When he died, 
the strongest pillar of the group fell down and a prop 
went out from under the Board of Trade. Other pil- 
lars have fallen and other props have gone out, and 
it does not seem that the Board of Trade of today is 
the same as of old, or occupies the same stronghold 
that it did in days of yore. It is possible that the 
building of railroads and the shifting of commercial 
centres has done much to relieve the Board of Trade 
of its ancient splendor and prestige, while the shift- 
ing of the logical scene of its best usefulness to other 
cities in the land, and the changed conditions effecting 
agriculture and commerce, have put their shadows 
upon the Board of Trade. The arteries of trade 
which at one time found their most natural way 
through the pit of that Exchange, now take shorter 
cuts — avoiding the middlemen, and thus eliminating 



CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE 151 

or reducing commissions, and go past it to other centres. . 
Is it altogether this that has happened, or is it that 
the men of old are not there now to uphold its dignity 
and its old time power ? And if such be the case, is it 
that changing conditions — the product of which is 
men — have ceased to produce in the same manner and 
quality as when the Board of Trade was in the meri- 
dian of its career? 



Chapter VI 
WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 
1 890- 1 893 

AS the ending of the period of four hundred 
years following the discovery of America by 
Christopher Columbus in 1492 began to come 
to its close, there developed in the minds of our coun- 
try's leaders the thought that special significance at- 
tached to the coming event, and that it should be duly 
celebrated accordingly in a manner characteristic of 
American spirit and enterprise. As the idea crystal- 
ized into more definite form it was determined as the 
climax of the four centuries of development in Amer- 
ica to hold a world's exposition of the progress, not 
only of America, but of all nations, in the arts, indus- 
tries and science down to the time of holding it. 
Finally in 1889 a bill was introduced in Congress for 
the purpose of inaugurating the exposition and con- 
ducting it in a befitting manner. Then there arose 
great rivalry between the several principal cities of 
the United States that were contending with each 
other for the honor of holding it, the chief contestants 
being New York, Chicago, Washington and St. 
Louis. 

At this time my father became active in the agita- 
tion as far as Chicago was concerned, and he was 
particularly instrumental in obtaining the honor for 






154 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

Chicago through his influence and personal presence 
at Washington where he was well and favorably 
known to public men in general and particularly to 
President Cleveland, whose champion he had been as 
a Cleveland Republican or Mugwump during his first 
Presidential campaign. He therefore was present at 
Washington with others of the committee to push the 
claims of Chicago at the several times the matter came 
up in Congress for discussion and decision. Tre- 
mendous opposition was brought against Chicago in 
favor of other cities, but her claims to the distinction 
finally prevailed over all other contestants as a result 
of the extraordinary perseverance and forceful work 
of the committee in proving to Congress the superior 
advantages which Chicago would be able to afford 
for the occasion, and her ability to cope successfully 
with the great problem. The result was that the bill 
authorizing the exposition passed in Congress on 
April 25, 1890. This provided for a national com- 
mission for exercising functions national in character 
pertaining to the exposition ; while the actual work of 
preparing for the exposition, financing it, erecting the 
buildings and conducting the business of it was to be 
assumed by an Illinois corporation to be organized for 
the purpose. This corporation was at first known as 
the "World's Exposition of 1892" but was afterwards 
appropriately changed in name to the "World's 
Columbian Exposition." 

The Exposition Company was capitalized first at 
$5,000,000 which represented the first idea of cost, 



WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 155 

and then increased to $10,000,000, the project being 
popularized by inviting subscribers large and small 
from all classes of citizens, rich and poor, high and 
low, with the result that there were over 30,000 stock- 
holders. Forty-five of Chicago's leading citizens were 
named as the original directors, my father being one 
of the number, and Mr. Lyman J. Gage was named as 
the first President of the organization. In framing 
his committees, Mr. Gage named my father as Chair- 
man of the committee on foreign exhibits which had 
to do with interesting all the nations of the earth in 
the exposition, and he also placed him upon the im- 
portant committee on legislation. The work of prelimi- 
nary organization began and was well under way 
when Mr. Gage determined to resign, as his duties, 
taken together with other responsibilities which he 
could not avoid, overtaxed his strength and health 
and made it necessary for him to do so. The directors 
then focused their minds on my father as the man to 
place at the helm and drive this tremendous under- 
taking to a successful finality and he was, therefore, 
elected President of the World's Fair in the spring of 
1891, and at once began his duties and gave all his 
time without any compensation other than popular 
approval of his work, and so continued to do as 
long as he served. In fact, it was a labor of love with 
all the directors, most of whom gave half their time 
to it, and none of them, with but one exception, ever 
accepted a cent of compensation from the exposition 
company from the beginning to the end. 



156 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

The corporation opened up its offices in the begin- 
ning of the year 1891 occupying the entire floor 
of one of the large down-town office buildings, 
and then began the great task of financing the 
plan, erecting the buildings which were to consti- 
tute a city in themselves, and interesting all the 
nations of the earth in sending exhibits character- 
istic of their respective countries. The ambition 
of Chicago was to make it an exposition such as had 
never been in the history of the world. There had 
been fifteen universal expositions preceding it in dif- 
ferent parts of the world during the preceding forty- 
three years, and the ambition of my father and his 
fellow directors was to make this a show that would 
go down through all history as the very quintessence 
of expositions; as one that would overshadow all 
preceding ones in grandeur and magnificence, and 
discourage all future ones in their attempts to rival it. 
All this would take much money to accomplish in 
addition to brains and unceasing work. The very 
cream of Chicago's citizenship in business and pro- 
fessional ability made up the directory, but where to 
get the money in so much larger amounts than 
originally contemplated, was indeed a serious ques- 
tion. The public spiritedness of the City of Chicago 
showed itself in the City bonding itself for $5,000,000. 
The exposition company also bonded itself and its 
gate receipts for another $5,000,000, and Congress 
was asked to appropriate still another $5,000,000. In 
the effort to get this last appropriation my father was 



WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 157 

unusually active, and he visited the City of Washing- 
ton a great deal in connection with securing Federal 
aid. Congress was not friendly to the exposition idea 
and begrudged any aid that it could give. It was 
opposed to granting in full the aid applied for, but 
it finally relaxed to the extent of giving the exposition 
company $2,500,000 in silver half dollar coins, specially 
designed as souvenirs for commemorating the exposi- 
tion year. While these coins were a novelty at first 
the directors were able to sell them for a dollar each, 
and in this way realized from them considerably more 
than the $2,500,000 which represented their face value, 
but as soon as the fad wore off they could only be 
disposed of at their face value. 

Father was a member of the original budget com- 
mittee which had to do with the financial operations 
of the fair. He had much to do with the work of 
securing the co-operation of the different States and 
Nations in connection with the exposition. In the 
very beginning of the operations the Board of Direc- 
tors and National Commission began to clash. The 
commission which was principally made up of poli- 
ticians, hung like a millstone around the neck of the 
exposition and did much to retard it in its early work. 
It was very eager to have something to do with the 
spending of the many millions of dollars in building 
the White City. Every one knew what that would 
mean and that it would lead to the failure to accom- 
plish results and to undoubted scandal. The direc- 
tors, however, who were business and professional 



158 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

men of tried experience and known honor, did not for 
a moment contemplate allowing the disbursement of 
the money to go out of their hands. The subscribers 
of it had placed it in their hands, and they looked to 
them to spend it rightly and make the exposition a 
success. The relations of the two bodies were, how- 
ever, harmoniously adjusted as soon as the smell of 
the money was cut off, and it is said that Father had 
much to do with bringing this about, with the result 
that thereafter the business affairs of the exposition 
went on quite smoothly and without interference from 
the commission. 

Of course, with the spending of so much money 
in sight, the avarice and greed of different interests 
which had been excited by the hope of being benefitted, 
had to be met and the interests of the exposition care- 
fully guarded. Perhaps more on this account than 
any other was Father selected as the head of the Fair 
as a barrier against corruption because of his known 
scrupulousness and rigid honesty. 

One of the first of the many grafts which were at- 
tempted to be levied was the electrical contract for 
the fair, which the General Electric Company hoped 
to get at its tender of $1,800,000 "which meant no 
profit to them as the bid only contemplated giving 
them an advertisement and helping out the World's 
Fair corporation." Although my father at the time 
had had little experience in the cost of electrical appa- 
ratus, his common sense suggested to him that the 
price offered was unreasonably high. An attempt 



WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 159 

was made to railroad it through, for certain directors 
were also stockholders in the General Electric Com- 
pany, but my father thwarted this and directed that 
an investigation of other companies be made for the 
purpose of cutting down what seemed to him to be 
an extortionate appropriation for a single object. As 
a result of his stand the General Electric Company 
reduced its bill to the charitable sum of $554,000. 
Then Mr. Westinghouse in behalf of his company 
issued his promise supported by a very large bond, 
that if allowed to bid, his company would do the same 
work for a sum less than $400,000. As a result of all 
this the Westinghouse Company made a tender of 
$399,000 and secured the contract, at which figure it 
made a slight profit in addition to securing a very 
great advertisement. 

The construction operations were, of course, laid 
out upon a very extensive scale, and the working or- 
ganization necessary for the spending of so many 
millions of dollars in so short a time in practically 
building a new city within the space of months, was 
necessarily one which had to be well thought out. 
Contracts had to be let for the construction of each 
building, and this had to be done most carefully and 
under well considered specifications. The great archi- 
tectural firms of the countrv were invited to furnish 
plans for the several buildings. There was no com- 
petitive contest for these honors, but the architects 
were selected by the directors from among the best 
and most noted and they were paid a liberal fee or 



160 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

honorarium for such services, although the honor of 
doing the work was considered their best return for 
the so doing. 

The prairie waste where the Fair was to be located 
south of Chicago on Lake Michigan had to be trans- 
formed entirely with respect to its landscape features. 
Great dredges were put to work excavating artificial 
lakes and lagoons, and trees and shrubbery were 
planted under the directions 'of the best landscape 
engineers in the land, in order to give the fair grounds 
a picturesqueness which they otherwise would not 
have had. Then Chicago's dream began to become a 
reality, and the exposition finally loomed up in all its 
artistic, enchanting and grand proportions as a new 
landscape, and a new city began to take completed 
form there out of the original prairie waste. It is 
now but a memory of a beautiful vision beside the 
Lake. 

Then came the question of the exhibits to be in- 
stalled within the several palaces which had been pre- 
pared for their reception. The entire world was can- 
vassed for this purpose by emissaries sent out on a 
tour of the different countries for the purpose of 
interesting them to their advantage in participating 
in the great work. All this met with flattering suc- 
cess, and the nations came as with one accord to dis- 
play the best results of their individual civilizations. 
Then the gates were opened and the people came in 
armies from all over the world, and although the 
country was in a state of panic and hard times, yet 




a 3 



^ u 



WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 161 

the attendance was extraordinarily large. Some of 
the single day's attendance were record breakers, such 
as Chicago Day which brought three-quarters of a 
million people to the fair grounds. It is evident 
enough without emphasizing the fact, that to accom- 
plish all this meant an organization equal in ability 
and effectiveness to any in the land, and the fact that 
Father presided over it in a manner entirely to his 
credit, and to the satisfaction of the directors and the 
citizens of Chicago, is a source of great pride and 
satisfaction to his friends and to those who are related 
to him. 

The Fair was dedicated October 23, 1892, by the 
Vice-President of the United States. It was opened 
to the public on May 1, 1893, by President Cleveland, 
which act was signalized by the simultaneous unfurl- 
ing of the flags of all nations, the starting of the elec- 
tric fountains, the dazzle of electric lights, and the 
unveiling of the statue of the Republic. The total cost 
of the fair was $43,000,000 and it covered an area 
of one square mile, the largest single building covering 
thirty-one acres, being large enough to hold under its 
roof the entire army of Russia. The report of the 
Congressional committee on the World's Fair con- 
tained this tribute to the exposition : — 

"In its scope and magnificance the exposition stands alone. 
There is nothing like it in all history. It easily surpasses all 
similar enterprises, and will amply illustrate the marvelous 
genius of the American people in the great domains of science, 
commerce, manufactures, and invention, which constitutes the 



162 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

foundation upon which rests the structure of our national glory 
and prosperity." 

Father served as President throughout the year 
1 89 1 and was re-elected for the following year. The 
transportation problem was perhaps the greatest one 
that concerned the directors of the fair. How to 
handle the great crowds that the exposition would 
attract to the city, and how to transport them safely 
to and fro, was the most vital question to be settled. 
Whether Father was originally responsible for the 
idea of track-raising to insure public safety, by allow- 
ing the street thoroughfares to go under the rail- 
roads instead of crossing at grade does not seem to 
be known, but it is quite certain that the tremendous 
influence and energy which he put behind the execu- 
tion of this idea was responsible for its successful con- 
summation. The World's Fair Company donated to 
the Illinois Central Railroad over $200,000, or a sum 
of money equal to what it would have had to spend in 
building bridges and viaducts for the traffic to cross 
over and above the railroad tracks. With this encour- 
agement, the Illinois Central was inspired to raise 
its entire roadbed from its city terminal to the out- 
skirts of the city. This served the purpose of the fair, 
but the object lesson which it gave was of more far- 
reaching influence still, for it resulted later in all the 
railroads coming into Chicago being compelled to like- 
wise raise their tracks at their own expense. This 
was the theme in connection with the exposition work 
that Father talked most about, and the one in which 



WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 163 

his heart was more firmly set, and its accomplishment 
has proved a great and permanent blessing to the City 
of Chicago. 

The terrible strain of so herculean a task, together 
with the worries incidental to an invalid wife, caused 
Father to break down in health in the summer of 1892. 
He therefore went abroad with his family for the 
purpose of rest and recuperation, but finding that he 
did not mend as rapidly as he had hoped, and feeling 
that the success of the exposition would be jeopardized 
by his absence from the scene of operations, he felt 
constrained in the fall of 1892 to resign the Presi- 
dency, which he did while in Europe, This was 
reluctantly accepted by the directory, and thereafter 
his w T ork in connection with the fair was less exacting 
than it had been before, although he still remained a 
director. The great task of blocking out the edifice 
in the rough having been completed, the direction of 
the work thereafter, and the finishing touches went on 
in other hands. 



Chapter VII 
THE CIVIC FEDERATION 

1895-1897 

WHEN public plundering became so rampant 
in Chicago and political morality reached the 
low ebb which it did in the early 90' s, it was 
only natural that a distressed and exasperated people 
should take measures to provide an antidote and cor- 
rective. Thus there gathered together from time to 
time, meetings of outraged citizens, with the final re- 
sult that they formed themselves together into an 
organization and styled it the Civic Federation. The 
association had for its object the purifying of city 
politics, the securing of efficient administration of 
civic affairs, the suppression of vice, and the improve- 
ment of public morality, the institution of charities, 
and the furtherance and betterment of industrial and 
educational conditions. Evidently the organization 
took upon its shoulders a herculean task. It was 
officered by public spirited citizens possessed of the 
courage of their convictions, the love of country, and 
unselfish devotion to a most righteous cause. These 
men gave their time from their business and other 
affairs without any compensation whatever, but what 
they have done has left its lasting impress upon the 
character of Chicago as a city, for which posterity 



166 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

will be grateful. The association divided its work 
into six departments, presided over by six standing 
committees appointed from the membership of the 
organization. These departments were known as the 
Political, Municipal, Philanthropic, Morals, Indus- 
trial, and Educational Departments. As an offshoot 
from this organization has grown the National Civic 
Federation, with headquarters in New York City, 
having the same general purposes, but wider in its 
scope, so as to include situations national in aspect. 

My father was one of the few men who originally 
got together and crystalized this movement for bet- 
ter conditions, into the working organization which 
has been described. As the first President of it, Mr. 
Lyman J. Gage directed its affairs in the beginning. 
At the end of the first year he was succeeded in office 
by my father, who served as President during the 
years 1895, 1896, and 1897, resigning from the office 
during the latter part of his last year on account of 
poor health and failing strength, for he was at the 
same time burdened with the Board of Trade presi- 
dency. The period of his administration was marked 
by brilliant achievements which have become a part of 
the best history of Chicago. It took a man of nerve 
and physical courage to be at the head of an organi- 
zation of this character and direct its movements, and 
in casting about for such a man his fellow associates 
made no mistake in lighting upon my father. Fight- 
ing, to him was second nature, and carried with it a 
genuine pleasure, but fighting for principles as he 



THE CIVIC FEDERATION 167 

always did, inspired him to efficient action to a degree 
more than is common among men. 

To tell all that this association accomplished 
for the public good under his leadership during 
these three years would mean to write a separate 
book upon the subject. Contemporaneously with 
his duties in connection with this association, he 
was serving as President of the Board of Trade, 
and the great fight he was conducting in behalf 
of the latter organization against the iniquitous 
bucket-shops of Chicago was taken up through the 
Civic Federation as well. The joint fight through 
the two organizations resulted in the practical 
extinguishment of the bucket-shop plague in Chicago 
and was so far-reaching in its effects, as to 
strike deadly blows to the same industry in other 
cities. In fact in this feature of its work the Civic 
Federation's operations extended into Iowa, New 
York City and other parts of the country. The Civic 
Federation had at its command a well organized 
secret service, so that it never struck a blow without 
being provided with full ammunition. Upon the in- 
formation obtained through this service there were 
281 bucket-shop persons indited at one time. Six 
Skekle bucket-shops were raided by the Chicago 
police under the direction of the Federation and 350 
people were arrested. When brought before the 
courts to plead to the charges preferred against them, 
many of them gave fictitious names for the purpose of 
indicating how indifferent they were to the crusade 



168 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

against them. Among the names given by some of 
the prisoners were William T. Baker, William Mc- 
Kinley and Lyman J. Gage. 

Father next directed his guns against the gambling 
element of Chicago, and particularly against the pool 
rooms and the Westside Racetrack. Fortunately for 
the purposes of the Federation and the good of the 
city, Chief of Police Badenoch was a good citizen and 
friendly to the purposes of the Federation, and be- 
cause of this fact the Federation was enabled to do 
much more effective work than would have been pos- 
sible otherwise. The Federation discovered the in- 
iquitous and vicious situations, planned the mode of 
attack, and Chief Badenoch would lead the charge. 
In this way seven pool rooms were raided at one 
time and five hundred people taken prisoners. Gam- 
bling in this way was practically driven out of Chi- 
cago, for without protection from the police it could 
not thrive. This protection was lacking, due largely 
to the influence of the Federation in securing the ap- 
pointment of honest and effective patrolmen. The 
warfare upon the gamblers completely demoralized 
their business and made their calling so unattractive 
that they quit business or moved to other cities. Some 
of them felt that they had as much right to thrive in 
their line of business as other people did in their busi- 
ness, and they felt that Father and his lieutenants 
were unrighteously serving in the role of persecutors 
of them. As a result of this feeling upon their part, 
the gamblers brought damage suits against Father 



THE CIVIC FEDERATION 169 

for large amounts, aggregating over a quarter of a 
million dollars, but it is needless to say that these 
suits never came to a hearing. Some of the gamblers 
would change their names and the outward style of 
their business and attempt to live again but without 
success. The McClure den was one of the most per- 
sistent in this manner but finally gave up the ghost. 
The Federation took a look in on Grand Jury 
methods and found that many of its members were 
soliciting bribes, and as a result they got their punish- 
ment. The Civil Service Commissioners were indicted 
for irregular conduct in office. These Commissioners 
were Dudley Winston, Hempstead Washburn and 
Adolph Klaus. Without fear or favor the Federation 
struck its blows. One of the Commissioners, Mr. 
Klaus, grew humorous and circulated the following 
verse of his own composition: 

"Paddy cake, paddy cake Baker man, 
Make us indited as fast as you can, 
Make them and mark them with W. T., 
And fire them at Dudley and Hempy and me." 

In the Political Department, the Federation in sup- 
port of the Crawford Primary Election Law began 
prosecutions for violations of the same. In this con- 
nection they sent abstracts of the law to 4,500 judges 
and clerks, giving notice that violators would be 
prosecuted. Evidence was secured against a large 
number and indictments obtained. 

For the purpose of securing good men in office and 
the prevention of boodle associations, there was or- 



170 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

ganized the Municipal Voters League, which co-oper- 
ated with the Civic Federation and other reform or- 
ganizations. In this way it was discovered that 
through fraud and intimidation and other tactics of 
desperate men, the good work of the Federation was 
about to be defeated at the coming elections. This 
was thwarted by the discovery of illegal registrations 
and false naturalizations to a wholesale extent. Re- 
wards of $100 were offered throughout the city for 
evidence sufficient to convict people of illegal voting. 
All evidence of prospective crimes in this direction 
were immediately published broadcast, and the judges 
and clerks of the election were carefully selected after 
the closest scrutiny, with the general result that the 
election was saved and good men conducted into office. 
The Federation through its Municipal Department 
was instrumental in securing a just and equitable as- 
sessment of property so that taxation might be placed 
where it belonged, allowing no favored interests to 
escape from bearing their share of the city's burdens. 
The consolidation of the various towns around Chi- 
cago, such as Hyde Park, Englewood and others, was 
put under way by the Federation. One of the most 
practical benefits which the Federation was able to 
secure for the city in all its history was to demonstrate 
that the street cleaning department was extravagant 
and that this work could be better done for half what 
the city was paying. A street cleaning bureau was 
organized, which investigated street cleaning in 
neighboring cities with a showing that $8.50 per mile 



THE CIVIC FEDERATION 171 

was all the work was worth, although Chicago had 
been paying $18.50. The Federation secured private 
subscriptions along the principal down town streets, 
and through its bureau organized for the pur- 
pose, actually did the work for $10 per mile. The 
result of this was that when bids were next opened 
by the Commissioner of Public Works, the lowest bid 
was $8.40 per mile, while the highest was only $9.99, 
and this was tendered by the firm which the previous 
year had been getting $18.50. 

A sanitary inspection service was organized which 
watched with eagle eye the garbage contractors of the 
city and the inspectors employed by the city who 
supervised the work. The investigation also ex- 
tended to the milk supply, the ice and water supply, 
fruit stands, &c, and many other things effecting the 
public health and cleanliness. The Federation made 
it difficult for the granting of public franchises with- 
out compensation to the city. It also discovered that 
the packing houses at the stockyards had tapped the 
city water mains and were stealing water for the pur- 
pose of running their factories, which illicit use of 
water had probably been going on for years. It was 
impossible to jail any for this offense as the guilt 
could not be laid at any particular door, and innocence 
of evil intent was claimed by the offenders. However, 
the Federation made it impossible for them to do the 
thing again. The Federation organized the Bureau 
of Charities, with Father as Vice-President, and this 
is the predominating charity organization in Chicago 



172 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

today. It has for its object the bringing of all the 
different charity organizations of the city into co- 
operation in order to examine into conditions of real 
and legitimate want, and to bring thoughtful persons 
individually into personal and friendly communica- 
tion with families in need. Its work has resulted in 
young children being kept off the streets at night and 
given an opportunity to go to school, and beggars 
have been found employment. The Federation's war- 
fare was directed against slot machines, and it did 
much under Father's leadership in establishing purity, 
by the restriction of vice, and the securing of employ- 
ment and good homes for evil doers. It did much dur- 
ing his administration towards adjusting strikes by 
urging arbitration, and towards the solution of the 
child labor problem. It has secured better practice in 
the heating and ventilation of school buildings, the 
qualification of teachers, and the safety of pupils. 

The Federation inaugurated branch offices in 
twenty-five wards, each taking up in its own district 
the important reform measures promulgated by the 
parent organization over which my father presided. 
At the time of his introduction to the office three- 
fourths of the common council of the city were thieves, 
known as "Grafters and gray wolves," and such had 
been the situation for the three or four years prior. 
It is now safe to say that seventy-five per cent of the 
Chicago City councilmen are capable, reliable and 
honest men. In fact, it has today the best council of 
any large city in the United States, and the Feder- 



THE CIVIC FEDERATION 173 

ation, and those who worked for it, have ample reason 
to be proud of what they were the means of bringing 
about. It is not to be wondered at therefore, in view 
of the drastic house-cleaning which was going on 
throughout the city, that my father became the target 
for abuse and hatred among the criminal and the law- 
less element. Many times did he receive anonymous 
letters through the mails, stating that he would be 
assassinated if he did not let up in the warfare which 
he was engineering, and many times he was followed 
by persons with evil intent when walking alone at a 
late hour; but all this had as much effect upon his 
determination to follow his convictions and to do his 
duty as he saw it, as a baby's breath would have had 
in attempting to blow out the Chicago fire. 



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Chapter VIII. 
SXOQUALMIE FALLS AND WHITE RIVER 
POWER DEVELOPMENTS. 
1887-1904. 



AS my father entered upon the later years of his 
life, he began to have a joy and pride in his 
children, which earlier in their lives he did not 
display to so great a degree, for like most natures, 
his mellowed with the years and as his children grew 
up. He looked upon his children as a business propo- 
sition. Towards them he had always been exacting 
and severe. He was as sparing of his personal en- 
dorsement of their capabilities as he was of his 
financial assistance to them. In our early life we 
looked upon him as a hard master. We did not get 
the inspiration from him that we would have done 
had he leaned a little closer, so we often got dis- 
couraged in the hope of pleasing him. But that was 
his way, and it was perhaps for the good of us. When 
my brother Howard and I were attending Cornell 
University we were not restricted by him in the least 
in the quality of board, our dress, or in the essentials. 
We were required to schedule our requirements in 
detail each month in advance, to which list of necessi- 



176 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

ties we were allowed to add two dollars and a half, 
''pocket money" for each of us. This seems a frugal 
pocket money allowance for the sons of a wealthy 
man. Our entire allowance for the whole four years 
for board, tuition, fraternity dues, and the essentials, 
including traveling expenses twice a year each way 
between Chicago and Ithaca, New York, was less than 
$600.00 a year for each. He was in no sense mean 
nor stingy, but he did what he thought best for his 
children; and as a result he has no spoiled sons to 
blush for. When we finished college, we each wanted 
a job. I asked him to give me letters to some of his 
railroad friends so I could get started in some rail- 
road engineering corps. He said, "He couldn't do 
that, — he never endorsed anyone without knowing 
something of his abilities, etc., and in that regard, 
I was quite a stranger to him." So it happened that 
having an illustrious father at that time was no help 
at all to an ambitious son, for it looked to a man up 
a tree, as though this father's failure to recommend 
was due to the having of a black sheep for a son. 
But again I say, that was his way and he acted as he 
believed right. No one gave him money nor pushed 
him ahead when he was a boy and it did not hurt him, 
— so why should it hurt us, he reasoned. He was 
particularly conscientious in the dispensation of any 
patronage or favors within his command to members 
of his family. As President of the Chicago World's 
Fair he commanded a great deal of patronage in the 
shape of very attractive and lucrative positions which 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 177 

were his to give, but none such were ever offered to 
his sons, who would doubtless during the hard times 
at that time have been glad to have them; and they 
knew him too well to ask for any such official consid- 
eration by virtue of filial relation. It was one of the 
set maxims of his life to treat patronage in this way, 
and he often criticized public men for violating his 
ideas of etiquette in such matters by injecting their 
relations into positions of official favor. 

As he began to withdraw gradually from public life 
and from the activities of business during his later 
years, he relaxed more and more in favor of his chil- 
dren, and gave them a helping hand. This he had 
done at times previously, in the way of making them 
small loans and exacting prompt payment of the same, 
just as he would from strangers, but he was always 
looking forward to the time when we would be sea- 
soned and tried by experience, so that then he might 
stand behind us, not only as a father but as a banker, 
after he deemed our fitness for such confidence fully 
demonstrated. 

And so the time came after we had been upon our 
own resources and independent of him for a period 
of about ten years, when he backed his son Howard 
in the purchase of a considerable interest in Butler 
Brothers' establishment whose position in that firm 
I had previously secured for him. His letters to me 
indicated an intention later on of backing his son-in-law 
in the contracting business, and he was also disposed 
to back his son Henry in a newspaper enterprise, as 



178 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

soon as an associate might be found to invest in it 
and take the business end, while Henry would take 
the literary end. For Bertha, his daughter, he in- 
sured his life for $50,000 which is now being paid 
to her in an annuity. But his most signal favor fell 
upon me at the age of thirty-four, and the result of it 
has since shown that his confidence and judgment 
were not misplaced. 

Now comes the period in his history when for five 
years, although we were nearly two thousand miles 
apart, his daily life was closely interwoven with my 
own, in the carrying out of the great engineering and 
construction enterprises of harnessing the falls of the 
Snoqualmie River and the rapids of the White River 
in the State of Washington, and transmitting the 
power thereof electrically to Seattle, Tacoma and 
Everett, and the intervening towns. He really knew 
this work only as it was reflected through my daily 
letters to him, for by actual visitation he has only seen 
the Snoqualmie project three times in his life, and 
then for about an hour each time, while White River 
he never saw at all. He was quick to grasp the mean- 
ing of the engineering plans as I explained them to 
him, and the progress of the physical construction 
from day to day as I reported it to him was clear to 
his mind. He saw it not only with the eye of a shrewd 
business man, but with the eye of an engineer, for by 
nature he was designed for such. I venture to say 
that he took more genuine interest in my work in de- 
veloping these enterprises, than he ever took in any 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 179 

work of his own, except possibly the World's Fair. 
He took an unconcealed pride in what I was under- 
taking to do and was actually accomplishing, and he 
made it almost the daily topic of conversation between 
himself and his friends when they chanced to meet at 
lunch or at other places. He would tell them "Charley 
is accomplishing a great undertaking out there in the 
Puget Sound country and is going to make his for- 
tune and fame out of it and mine too, besides doing 
a public good. I am with him financially and I know 
he will succeed, although the difficulties before him are 
very great and he has a big fight on his hands be- 
sides." "We are actually taking the waste of nature," 
he would say, "and making useful and valuable power 
out of it, and bringing it down to the cities, and sell- 
ing it to the people for much less than such power 
costs them by any other method, and they are glad to 
get it. That's business !" He felt that we were doing 
an integral part of the world building, and as he had 
always been a trader before, having only had to do 
with property already created, he felt that this was 
different and better, in that we were actually creating 
property and adding to the wealth of society thereby. 
This is how we happened to get together on this 
undertaking and finally to accomplish it; and telling 
it as a part of his life, I must of necessity tell it as 
the best part of my own. By education and profession 
I am a civil engineer, and have always since my 
graduation from college been identified with large 
works and undertakings of an engineering and con- 



180 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

structional character. I went to Seattle in 1887 and 
joined the engineering star! of a railroad there, which 
was building northward from Seattle to the Canadian 
boundary and eastward across the Cascade Mountains 
to Spokane. This latter line passed within fifty feet 
of the great Snoqualmie Falls cataract, which at that 
time had no commercial value, and was only thought 
of as a place of resort for fishermen, tourists, and 
campers. In the performance of my particular duties 
there was hardly a week passed that I did not see 
this wasting waterfall; and it came into my mind at 
that early time when I was still only a boy, that some 
day it would be, or ought to be, a useful agency as 
an industrial factor, and that its power would 
eventually be carried to the distant cities for utiliza- 
tion there. Then the daring hope sprang up in my 
breast — the hope that I might in some degree at least 
— work it out ! Long distance electrical transmission 
of power at that time was more a theory than a prac- 
tice, owing to the fact that the transformer for raising 
to high voltages for transmission and lowering to 
low voltages for distribution had not yet been per- 
fected. The power project developed more and more 
in my mind however, expanding from the first thought 
of harnessing the cataract for near at hand uses only, 
until, as the science of transmission developed, my 
idea expanded accordingly, so that in a few years I 
had conceived a well defined plan for utilizing the 
power of Snoqualmie Falls and transmitting it to 
Seattle for industrial and illuminating purposes. 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 181 

I realized, however, that such a project could not 
be undertaken with success unless the commercial sit- 
uation warranted it as a business measure, and so 
I set about planning to provide a market for the power 
as soon as it could be delivered. For this market I 
looked to Seattle, and in looking that far, a distance of 
thirty-two miles, it seemed a chimerical and uncertain 
task, and to say the least bold. Seattle then was not 
in a large sense a manufacturing or industrial city, 
except in the way of saw mills, which were scattered 
about more or less, and which used their waste for 
power producing fuel. There were at that time 
(1889) certain street car lines in Seattle, and an elec- 
tric light plant called the Home (afterwards Union) 
Electric Co., of which I was one of the original organ- 
izers, all having independent steam power plants; — 
and these I looked upon as the prospective market. 
They were owned by different companies, and al- 
though there did not seem to be enough even of this 
business to make success an assured thing, yet the 
matter still nursed itself in my mind for a number of 
years. The population was about 10,000 people then 
when I first considered the matter as against 240,000 
at present. 

In the meantime, on account of the attractive pros- 
pects offering in a private engineering practice due to 
the city's rapid growth, I had resigned from the rail- 
road company and took work outside, which resulted 
in my earnings immediately trebling and later increas- 
ing even more rapidly, all of which I profitably in- 



182 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

vested in Seattle real estate. From this, I gradually 
drifted into electrical and general construction work 
as an engineer and contractor, — in which I was suc- 
cessful. Finally in 1891 I built by contract the Third 
Street and Suburban Electric Railway in Seattle, and 
an electric light plant in connection therewith for the 
Dennys, then considered the wealthiest people in that 
city. The work was done for considerably less than 
my estimate and should have given me a profit of 
about eighteen thousand dollars. On the eve of the 
completion of this contract however, the Dennys 
failed, due to their inability to refund their obligations. 
I had borrowed large sums of money to carry out the 
contract, hypothecating my estate for this purpose as 
well as the Denny securities which had come to me 
through my contract, so that I became involved with 
the Dennys and went down with them, resulting in the 
sweeping away of my first fortune of my own accumu- 
lation amounting to about forty thousand dollars, and 
leaving me indebted about sixty thousand dollars be- 
sides. This situation was made more particularly 
aggravating on account of my losing my lien upon the 
railroad property, due to some technicality in the law. 
Then began a period of great distress for me, for 
contemporaneously with this catastrophe came the 
general panic of 1893, and no section of the land felt 
the distresses of that situation quite so much as did 
the Puget Sound country. People were idle and going 
hungry. No one escaped. Claims in connection with 
the railroad contract amounting to over sixty thou- 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 183 

sand dollars were put in judgment against me as the 
result of the Denny failure, and under this deluge I 
had to carry myself for a number of years. There 
was no work going on and practically no employment 
for any one. It was a hand-to-mouth process for all. 
Rich men were land poor. The clothing of all was 
threadbare and frilled at the edges. Mine especially 
was so, and I stayed at home and worked in a garden 
most of the time so as to hide my poverty. My father 
knew but little of all this for I was too proud to tell 
him. There were fifty applicants for every job, both 
private and political. I was always in line with the 
fifty, and always just missed being chosen. I bid on 
several pieces of work, and always just missed — for- 
tunately perhaps for me, as in those distressful days 
the successful bidder in his extreme anxiety to get 
work, usually bid so low that he afterwards went 
broke. I missed the U. S. Dry Dock at Port Orchard 
Bay on Puget Sound by only $15.00 by bidding $509,- 

000 instead of $508,985, which was the successful bid. 

1 was actively and for over a year the leading candi- 
date for postmaster at Seattle, but failed at the last 
moment because of the Postmaster General at Wash- 
ington resigning and being succeeded by one who 
happened to be an old time Civil War crony of one of 
the candidates, who locally at least was considered the 
most unfit of any of the fourteen aspirants, and until 
then supposed to be the least likely. 

I finally became receiver of the Merchants National 
Bank, which was the only bank in Seattle that failed, 



184 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

and this was the first symptom of a clear sky that 
had come into my career for some years. I was ap- 
pointed by Hon. Jas. H. Eckels, Comptroller of Cur- 
rency upon the endorsement of Seattle's leading citi- 
zens, there being twenty-eight other candidates 
equally shabby, starved and clamorous. With this 
breathing spell ahead of me and a chance to live and 
think, I then set myself about studying out an escape 
from under the mountain of debt that was holding 
me down. I knew that it was not within my limita- 
tions to earn at any scale of salary a sum sufficient to 
extricate myself during any ordinary lifetime, and to 
assure at the same time a comfortable future for my- 
self and family. I knew that the accomplishment of 
such a herculean task would have to be by a master 
stroke of some sort, and I looked therefore to find 
within me such genius, if any existed, as would be 
necessary to accomplish it. 

My thoughts then turned back again to the earlier 
dreams of Snoqualmie, which had been less active in 
my mind during the period of the panic. I took the 
matter up again as actively as I could from time to 
time consistently with my duties to the bank receiver- 
ship. There were at this time ten street railway com- 
panies operating in Seattle, and three electric light 
companies. None of them earned their expenses, and 
it seemed almost an impossible task to approach them 
along the lines of selling them cheaper power at the 
expense of abandoning their steam plants and buying 
new electrical installations suitable for adaptation to 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 185 

the proposed power transmission plant. They were 
hard up, and could not afford such investments, and 
most of them too were in the hands of receivers. 
There then crystalized in my mind a comprehensive, 
economical, well denned and reasonable plan for buy- 
ing up and consolidating all the street railway systems 
in Seattle into one company, under one management 
and having one source of power, thereby eliminating 
the wasteful expense due to maintaining numerous 
managing organizations, and a multiplicity of power 
stations consuming expensive fuel and employing 
many men. I attacked the problem of consolidation 
as the solution of my pet scheme for developing the 
water power of Snoqualmie Falls.. I not only made 
my own plans and estimates concerning the proposed 
enterprise of the water power development and its pro- 
posed feeder the street railway and lighting combina- 
tion, but I secured corroborative estimates from other 
engineers as well. To carry out my purposes I made 
the consolidation my primary object, and the water 
power the secondary one. In 1895 I m ade a very com- 
plete and exhaustive study of the street railway and 
power situation. The books, records, and other facili- 
ties of all the companies were freely accorded to me 
for my purpose, and as a result I obtained not only an 
option on the Snoqualmie Falls, but upon all the rail- 
way properties in Seattle except one, — the Second 
Street Road, which was controlled by N. W. Harris 
& Co., of Chicago, who refused. These options were 
taken in my name in contract form in writing, and I 



186 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

then went East for the purpose of financing the con- 
solidation. I negotiated with several banking firms, 
and more particularly with Mason, Lewis & Co., of 
Chicago, who agreed to undertake the underwriting 
provided the situation could be given to them in 
blanket form, i. e., all roads to be included. 

I returned to Seattle and made another attempt to 
get the Second Street Road in line, but was frustrated 
in this purpose by Mr. S. Z. Mitchell, local manager 
of the General Electric Co., which company as well 
as Harris & Co. had a large interest in that particular 
road. It seems that Mr. Mitchell appreciated the 
value of my ambitious plan as soon as he knew of it, 
and so began to take measures to forestall me in put- 
ting it through. About this time I sought the co- 
operation of my father who at my solicitation then 
actively assisted me at the Chicago end, and frequently 
saw Mr. N. W. Harris in connection therewith. I 
invited him to join me in pushing the consolidation, 
promising that we would be in it on equal terms if 
he would subscribe a liberal amount to the undertak- 
ing to give it a good start and the prestige which his 
name would lend to it. He was not enthusiastic, as he 
thought it premature. He later agreed however to 
invest fifty thousand dollars in the bonds of my con- 
solidation enterprise if I succeeded in shaping it up. 

In connection with these various negotiations, I 
compiled a comprehensive report upon the street rail- 
way situation in Seattle, displaying the data acquired, 
and outlining my views as to a proper physical and 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 187 

financial plan of consolidation. In this report I for 
the first time in writing in 1896 set forth my idea of 
developing the water power of Snoqualmie Falls. As 
stated before, my whole thought and ambition, aim 
and work, centered around this one idea, namely the 
proposed Snoqualmie Falls Power Plant, and my dis- 
appointment in the failure of the consolidation on ac- 
count of the opposition of Mr. Mitchell of the General 
Electric, and of N. W. Harris & Co., had its bitterness 
more in the disappointment of not being able to carry 
out the power development idea at that time than in 
the failure of the consolidation itself. The street rail- 
ways were afterwards consolidated by Stone & Web- 
ster of Boston and their following, whom Mitchell 
and the General Electric Co. had interested at a cost to 
the purchasers of over a million dollars more than the 
agreed cost would have been to us ; and thus was lost 
to my father and myself the several million dollars 
profit, which later went to Stone & Webtser and their 
associates. Father had never taken kindly to "pro- 
moting," as otherwise this would not have escaped 
us as it did, much to his later regret. Mitchell's oppo- 
sition to me sprang from his jealously and resent- 
ment at my having secured the Denny contract in 
competition with his company, and also a profitable 
contract for building an electric road in Spokane. 
The apathy or reluctance upon the part of Harris & 
Co. was probably due to Father's undisguised distrust 
of that firm due to previous acquaintance with them. 
The consolidation would have given us a very hand- 



188 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

some profit, and it was my plan that the power fea- 
ture of it should take the form of a separate and 
independent company, which as such, we would be 
able to own personally and to finance out of the profit 
to accrue to us from the consolidation after paying as 
well the business debts which had foundered me dur- 
ing the panic. It was my aim and determination there- 
fore, to keep this power project separate and indepen- 
dent, and to maintain it as such throughout my life, 
as a pleasant and profitable business for my father and 
myself; to expand it as the country grew; to reach 
out to other cities with its transmission lines; to add 
to it other water powers from time to time, and 
gradually to shape it so as to serve all the present and 
prospective users of power in the Puget Sound coun- 
try. This youthful dream of mine, considered more 
or less chimerical then, began to be appreciated a 
few years later by my later rivals Stone & Webster, 
who have since then been aggressively carrying out 
my ideas in building up the great electrical system as 
I had planned it, which for me was destined to be 
a wiro-the-wisp. It is interesting to note at this point, 
that at the beginning of negotiations we soon after 
had with Stone & Webster looking to furnishing their 
company with power, that firm in a lengthy letter to 
us asserted that "no water power had ever been me- 
chanically or commercially successful, and in their 
judgment no water power ever would be successful." 
The South side of Snoqualmie River was owned by 
a woman in England, who owned 300 acres of land 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 189 

upon which the Falls was situated, and which she had 
acquired under a mortgage. Judge Burke, a leading 
lawyer in Seattle was her attorney, and I had fre- 
quent consultations with him in regard to the matter, 
letting him know my ideas and plans, which so in- 
spired his confidence that he finally gave me an option 
on the property at the very low original cost to his 
client, plus the accrued interest, taxes, etc., amounting 
to $40,500.00. The General Electric Company which 
had suddenly awakened to the possibilities of the situ- 
ation, were negotiating for this property at the same 
time, and my taking it from under their nose was an 
act for which they never forgave me, and they never 
could quite understand how it happened. 

I frequently discussed with my father by letters 
from Seattle and in person while in Chicago, my 
progress and disappointment in the failure of the con- 
solidation on account of my cherished idea of harness- 
ing the water power, which I had calculated would 
deliver me from bondage to my creditors, and open 
for us both a prosperous future. I then and therefore 
laid the matter before him of the water power alone, 
as an independent project by itself, upon the theory 
that it would be within the limitations of one man to 
accomplish the financing of the same, and that there 
would be no opposition or barriers in the way such as 
clouded my consolidation project. I asked him to 
join me in this plan financially and to become inter- 
ested equally with me as a partner. I had previously 
negotiated with other parties on the same terms but 



190 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

they did not make good. I accordingly elucidated to 
him more fully my plans and purposes, all of which 
interested him very greatly, for he had a mechanical 
mind in addition to his well-known business shrewd- 
ness and commercial instinct. He gave the matter 
more serious consideration than previously, for he had 
just made a small fortune in wheat resulting from 
Joe Leiter's famous corner and wanted to invest it. 
He had also grown to have complete confidence in 
my business and engineering ability. When I left 
Chicago to return to Seattle, his last words in answer 
to my importunities were : "I will send you the money 
to buy the Falls/' and this promise he fulfilled, so that 
I was able to take up my option on the Falls in October, 
1898; and his assurances in connection therewith and 
his acceptance of the arrangement for partnership as 
I proposed it led me then to stake my whole future 
irrevocably upon the work ahead. This then was the 
second important step in the inauguration of this great 
enterprise and the beginning of our partnership 
relations. 

Upon my return to Seattle I had the title to the 
property examined, and the agreed purchase price of 
$40,500.00 was paid before my option expired, I draw 
ing upon Father with his authority for that amount. 
During the period of my option, I could have made 
$50,000.00 by releasing it to an Englishman, who sud- 
denly concluded that he wanted to own the Falls him- 
self. This opportunity I of course declined, knowing 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 191 

that I could do many fold better by carrying my plans 
to completion in connection with my father. 

The purchase of the water power rights made 
through Judge Burke covered the south side of 
the river only, so I immediately began negoti- 
ations with certain Ohio people who owned the 
north side, which resulted in the purchase of that 
side as well, and thus was completed the control 
and ownership of this magnificent spectacle of 
nature and engine of industry. By my direction 
the titles of these properties were taken in my 
father's name, for the use of my name for the pur- 
pose would have encumbered them with my liabilities 
and thus endangered the project, and besides I wanted 
to attach the prestige of his name to the project. This 
was the real beginning of the partnership entered into 
between my father and myself for the purpose of 
carrying out my plans for the development of the profi- 
table and valuable Baker electric properties in the 
Puget Sound country. I needed such a person as him- 
self for the purpose of providing the initial money 
necessary for the execution of my projects. I pre- 
ferred him to any one else because he was my father, 
and because therefore I could trust him in the same 
way that he trusted me. Because of this mutual and 
reciprocal confidence our arrangement was purely 
verbal, simply an understanding between a father and 
his son as partners, that the one as financier would 
provide or arrange for the money, while the other as 
engineer and manager would contribute his invention 



192 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

and discovery, his skill and ability, his time and his 
labor, wholly and without distraction. We were to 
share alike the honors and profit whiGh success would 
bring, as well as the loss and discredit which failure 
would mean. Our partnership relations as related he 
often talked of to his intimate friends. For me it 
meant honorable fame or a blighted reputation, and 
for us both it meant a fortune made or crippled. For 
me success meant more than honor and fortune; it 
meant the real joy to which I had long looked forward, 
of drawing my father into a business relation with me 
of my own conception, by which he would later take 
additional pride in me as a son who had thus been the 
means of adding to his fortune as well as to my own, 
and of drawing him away from the wearisome and 
wearing Board of Trade. My ambition was later 
realized, but it came too late to do all for him that I 
had counted upon as he died before our work was 
finished. 

II. 

Let me now describe this enterprise as I planned 
it and as we finally in five years completed it in the 
shape that one sees it today as the socalled "Eighth 
Wonder of the World," by which name many have 
dubbed it. Snoqualmie Falls, situated in the foothills 
of the Cascade Mountains, results from the river of 
the same name falling in one leap over a precipice 
270 feet high. The name is the white man's corrup- 
tion of the name of a tribe of Indians called in their 




Longitudinal Section Snooualmie Power Plant. 




Constructing Dam Above Snoqualmie Falls. 



— - 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 



193 



Smoqualmie Fails & White Riveb Power Co. 

Seattle »-° Tacoma 



language "Sdoh-kwahl-bu," meaning the "Moon 
People/' because of their alleged lunar origin. 

About 500 feet back from 
the crest of the Falls the river 
is diverted downward through 
its bed through an excavated 
shaft 10x28 feet, which at 
the level of the lower river 
abruptly turns towards the 
foot of the falls, at the same 
time being enlarged into a 
large chamber, cave or cavity, 
200 feet long, 40 feet wide, 
and 30 feet high, all of which 
was excavated out of the 
solid rock with the use of 
dynamite. This is the power 
house, in which are installed 
five great water wheels, — one 
of which is the largest in the 
world, and the generators, capable of delivering 
altogether 19,000 electrical horse power. The water 
after passing down the shaft through the two 
eight foot wrought iron stand pipes and dis- 
charging through the water wheels, escapes through 
a tunnel about 400 feet long, likewise excavated 
out of the solid rock, and emptying back in 
the river at the foot of the falls. The whole 
conception is very bold, and is weird in aspect as one 
looks upon the thundering machinery, nearly three 




Diagramatic representation of 

the Generation, Transmission 

and Distribution of Sno- 

qualmie and White River 

Power. 



194 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

hundred feet below the ground, eternally busy at work 
in the rock cave looking like white marble, — for the 
rocks have been whitewashed. The ' 'cavity" is 
lighted by electricity and looks as gay and brilliant 
as a ballroom. The electricity generated in the cavity 
is transmitted on cables up the same shaft which car- 
ries the pressure pipes, and is led into the transformer 
house above, where the voltage is raised to 32,000 
through a series of transformers, at which high pres- 
sure it is transmitted over aluminum lines to the sub- 
stations in Seattle, 32 miles, Tacoma, 44 miles, Ever- 
ett, 36 miles, and the several intervening small towns. 
At these places and in very handsome and substantial 
buildings the location of which I personally and care- 
fully selected, the current is stepped down again in 
voltage to 2,200 and distributed over a net work of 
wires to the local customers. 

Contemporaneously with this development, I ar- 
ranged with the Westinghouse Electric Company for 
the purchase of certain water rights and lands held by 
them upon the White River about 25 miles from Sno- 
qualmie Falls, for the sum of $30,500.00. I took this 
in hand first as an option, but later on we paid the 
money and acquired it outright. The plan I had de- 
vised for the development on this river made it the 
simplest and least costly, and at that time, the largest 
single power development in the world, namely, 60,- 
000 H.P. I really took more pride in this project than 
in the first one. It is as yet unfinished owing to the 
attack made upon it in the courts by Stone & Webster, 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 195 

who had rival interests in Seattle and Tacoma, and 
were therefore anxious to crush out in its infancy this 
new project, which by the very nature of it could de- 
stroy any rival opposing it. Up to the time of this 
attack which interrupted our work there, we had ex- 
pended $165,000 on this development, in the purchase 
of lands and rights and in actual construction work, 
and most of this money came out of our Snoqualmie 
earnings. These two enterprises, Snoqualmie and 
White River, taken together as one, form probably 
the most profitable, reliable and enduring hydro-elec- 
tric public utility power development known anywhere 
in the world. 

In brief, the plan for White River is to divert it 
from its bed across a tableland through an excavated 
canal only three miles in length, into a series of lakes, 
which raised to a common level and overflowed to- 
gether, will submerge the intervening valleys and 
form one lake 4,000 acres in area and capable of 
being drawn down thirty feet. The geological forma- 
tion is cement gravel and is therefore ideal for reser- 
voir purposes. From this consolidated lake which I 
named Lake Dorothy in honor of my little daughter, 
the water will flow through pipes to the great brick 
and stone power house in the valley below under a 
head of 485 feet, nearly twice as high as Snoqualmie 
Falls. In simplicity, substantialbility and stupendous- 
ness, the White River project is without its equal any- 
where. From this plant Seattle is twenty-five miles 
distant, and Tacoma is only ten miles. I planned 



196 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

to have this plant and Snoqualmie connected 
together electrically into one great system, and hav- 
ing this in mind, I built the Snoqualmie transmission 
lines so as to pass the doors of the White River power 
house. 

It is interesting to repeat again right here, as ex- 
hibiting Father's absolute and unwavering faith in my 
integrity, judgment and skill in these matters, which 
were the principal security for his money advanced in 
connection with our work, that he never saw the 
White River property a single time, and he saw the 
Snoqualmie property but three times, and then only 
a very fezv hours each time. He rested absolutely 
upon me, and his belief in me was never shaken, al- 
though more than once did our enemies adroitly at- 
tempt to do so. I seldom referred anything to him 
until after it was done, and he never hindered me in my 
plans. His part was to do the financing, — mine was 
to contribute the plan, do the work and get the results, 
although I helped in the financing by assisting nego- 
tiations in the East, and by arranging loans in Seattle 
and Tacoma, and giving my personal endorsement 
thereon at times. He gave me absolutely free rein in all 
matters of policy, construction and finances, and only 
questioned my motives at times to draw me out in 
defense of the same, knowing that I held his interest 
in our work more sacred than I did my own. He sel- 
dom advised me in matters of management but con- 
tented himself with the single duty of providing funds 
upon my requisition. I of course almost daily re- 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 197 

viewed my work to him by letter and gave him that 
full confidence and attention that one partner should 
give to another. He always acted under my direction 
in all our mutual matters in furtherance of the part- 
nership relation. No father by his constant attitude 
ever paid a finer tribute to a son than this father thus 
did to me, and no son ever felt a keener regard for a 
father's welfare and happiness than I did for mine. 

It would be interesting to give some account of the 
history of the construction of these plants and the 
many physical and other difficulties which had to be 
contended with and all of which were successfully sur- 
mounted. Such a history would begin with our pre- 
liminary engineering plans, and at a time when I went 
on foot through the dense jungle above and below the 
cataract for the purpose of exploring the situation 
there ; and then as a pathfinder, blazing the trail over 
the mountains and through the forests to the distant 
cities for the purpose of locating the electric trans- 
mission lines thereto. In the same connection, other 
water power possibilities were explored by me in 
order to judge of what bearing, if any, they might 
have upon this particular situation, and with the idea 
of adding them to our general system later on in ac- 
cordance with my preconceived plan for one great 
electrical system for Puget Sound. 

Then next in order, we installed a steam plant at 
the head works for operating the hoisting engines, 
air compressors, and other machinery in connection 
with our construction operations, and a coffer dam 



198 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

was built around the proposed intake. Then drilling 
at the tunnel below and at the shaft above was started 
by means of the air-compressing plant, and the dyna- 
mite blasts began to do their work. None of the work 
was contracted out, as it was uncertain in character 
and had to be most carefully done ; so we did it by day 
and night labor under an organization created and 
supervised by myself, and running three shifts of men. 
It would be interesting to tell of a party of men who 
went to the scene of the operations at this time as my 
guests and watched the slender air drills beginning to 
hammer the hard basalt rock mountain side below 
the Falls and the rock river bed above, and how when 
I told them of the plan to thus dig a great subter- 
annean chamber out of the solid rock 500 feet back 
in the cliff for a power house, for the purpose of re- 
ceiving the water from the river above and discharg- 
ing it again into the river below after deriving the 
energy from it through the water wheels they stood 
in blank amazement and with looks of sympathy por- 
trayed upon their faces as much as to say "poor fool." 
At the same time, our agents went out and pro- 
cured the rights of way for the transmission lines, 
and following them came the several extensive crews 
of laborers who felled the trees and cleared away the 
forest debris in a swathe 500 feet wide in many places, 
for no tree either good or bad was allowed to stand 
which by its possible falling might reach the lines. 
And then through this right of way thus prepared the 
poles were set and the wires strung thereon, and then 



Ti 




J£-^~ 


«. ^ QUAUBE UCHT ' 




jJaa^feillllKS 



Seattle Substation and General Offices. 




Tacoma Substation, 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 199 

the commodious distributing stations in the cities and 
towns were built. Many tons of dynamite were ex- 
ploded in making the excavation for the power house, 
and so skillfully was it managed that no one was 
killed nor even hurt. Then came the lowering of the 
mighty machinery into the artificial cave 300 feet be- 
low the ground without an untoward accident, many 
of the single parts weighing 26,000 pounds, and soon 
after that the finished plant began its noted and suc- 
cessful career. 

The starting in operation of the first 10,000 H.P. 
section of our completed plant was heralded by my 
introducing to the situation at this time my mascot, 
my little daughter Dorothy, who was then only 
eighteen months old, and who had the same birthday 
as my father and step-mother. Responding to her 
part of the program at 8 o'clock one evening, she was 
lifted high up and turned the switch in the presence 
of many spectators, which for the first time in the his- 
tory of Snoqualmie Falls turned loose its subtle power 
within the borders of Seattle, and proclaimed this 
fact in dazzling evidence across the top of the sub- 
station by means of the words — "Snoqualmie Light" 
outlined in electric lights. So much for a brief his- 
tory of our constructional operations ; now let me re- 
late something of our financial and commercial his- 
tory as well. 

I deemed it best in the exploitation of our several 
enterprises, to do so under the multiple company plan 
and then later to put them together into one large 



200 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

company. This plan we carried out. I therefore first 
organized the parent or supply company, to which we 
later turned over the power plant. This company was 
to be related contractually to its two subsidiary or 
distributing companies organized upon financial 
plans as follows : — 

Snoqualmie Falls Power Co. (generating), $500,- 
000 capital stock. 

Seattle Cataract Co. (distributing), $100,000 
capital stock. 

Tacoma Cataract Co. (distributing), $100,000 
capital stock. 

These three companies I caused to authorize bond 
issues of $750,000, $300,000 and $200,000 respect- 
ively. We also owned as mentioned before the White 
River Power Company having $1,500,000 capital 
stock. 

In the beginning of our operations in accordance 
with the understanding of our partnership relation, 
my father advanced his own money to defray the ex- 
penses of construction under my supervision. How- 
ever, as soon as we had made a substantial showing, 
we began to look forward to financing our operations 
in the open market, and to this end I arranged for 
my father and Mason, Lewis & Company, a banking 
firm of Chicago, to meet for the purpose of arranging 
for the sale of a bond issue. Father was a stranger 
to this firm, but my acquaintanceship with them was 
close on account of my previous negotiations with 
them in connection with the consolidation of the Street 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 201 

Railways in Seattle, for which reason I wanted them 
to undertake the Snoqualmie issue. I came East and 
joined my father in presenting our matters to this 
firm and we finally arranged for them to take our first 
issue, viz.: $600,000.00 of bonds of the parent com- 
pany under the $750,000.00 mortgage, at the net price 
to us of 95 and without any stock bonus or sweetening 
whatsoever. 

This issue of bonds was the first that had 
ever been put out in the open market by any hydro- 
electric company upon a water power long dis- 
tance transmission project, and it required a long 
educational campaign to have the public think well 
enough of them to take them in any quantities. It 
looked at one time as though Mason, Lewis & Com- 
pany would make a complete failure of the flotation. 
For the purpose of educating the bond buying public, 
I therefore wrote many articles, descriptive of the 
work and argumentative of its success, which were 
published in various magazines, scientific papers and 
daily newspapers. I also turned prominent visitors 
to Tacoma and Seattle to our account by taking them 
to the falls to inspect the work and thereby always 
making them thereafter our champions. I did this 
whether they were prospective bond buyers or not. 
This educational campaign had its final effect and the 
issue was in time disposed of at the price that had been 
contracted to us. 

When an underwriter buys an issue of bonds, he 
has to consider the point of view of the man who be- 



202 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

comes the actual and final investor in the bond. The 
underwriter usually sells to the country banks or to 
Trust Companies in large lots, and they in turn dis- 
tribute them about until finally widows, farmers, or 
orphans own a single bond or very few at most. 
These then are the persons who have to be educated. 
When it was explained to such as these by the agents 
of Mason, Lewis & Company that it was our purpose to 
bring the power of a great cataract over three small 
wires strung over the mountains and through the 
valleys to Seattle and Tacoma, thirty and forty miles 
away, they would have looks upon their faces sug- 
gestive of the thought that they were up against a 
confidence game. It was too absurd a proposition for 
most of them to take seriously, so that one can readily 
understand the magnitude of the educational task be- 
fore us. Following our pioneering of this issue, the 
water power bonds of other companies as a security 
has crept up from the low estimate at which it was 
first received until they now rank with high grade 
ra?lroads and gas bonds. 

We also in accordance with my plan of organization 
as stated before, placed bond mortgages upon the two 
Cataract Companies and issued bonds thereunder 
covering the cost of construction incurred by these 
subsidiary companies. These bonds Father carried 
himself as we wished to have them at our command 
at a future time, when we planned to refund them 
by the issues of a consolidated company. 

In publishing Snoqualmie to the world I never 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 203 

missed any opportunities that came along to make a 
* "story" out of some event or other. The event which 
attracted the most widespread notice and caused our 
project to be lectured about and published in Europe 
as well as in this country, was the first great distance 
test. We had two circuits built to Seattle and two 
to Tacoma. These I connected up temporarily into 
one long circuit — 154 miles — beginning and ending 
at Snoqualmie. A generator at one end supplied the 
current, while the neighboring generator at the other 
end, — only ten feet distant in fact, although 1 54 miles 
distant electrically, received the current as a motor 
and was operated by it. The losses in transmission 
were noted under varying loads and different volt- 
ages, and the results were given to the Associated 
Press which gave it world-wide publicity. 

When I organized the several companies, I in- 
stalled directors from among my trusted friends with- 
out consulting my father but with his consent, as he did 
not want to hamper me in my management, inasmuch 
as the responsibility for winning our final success 
rested upon me. I handled all the campaigns for se- 
curing franchises in Seattle, Tacoma and other cities, 
and I generally applied for them in his name in order 
to attach to my application the greater importance and 
prestige that his wellknown name would give to 
them. In some of the smaller and unimportant places, 
I took the franchises in my own name, and afterwards 
assigned both those in his name and my own to the 
proper companies. Because of Father being so well 



204 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

and favorably known in the financial world I used his 
name very often in connection with our projects, for 
I regarded it as a valuable asset. I did this gen- 
erally without his knowledge in the first instance, but 
always had him confirm my use of his name later, 
which he always did very promptly. 

There is probably no other plant in this country 
of the same capacity so cheaply and at the same time 
so well built as our Snoqualmie plant. The construc- 
tion cost per H.P. will be seen to be about $80.00, in- 
cluding the distributing systems in Seattle, Tacoma 
and the small towns. With these local systems elimi- 
nated, the cost would be nearer $50.00 per H.P., an 
extraordinarily low showing. This compares favor- 
ably with the Puyallup plant near Tacoma on the same 
basis at $200.00, Niagara Falls at over $200.00, and 
nearly all the rest of the list at $100.00 to $150.00 
per H.P. 

Before the Snoqualmie plant was completed, I be- 
gan to make contracts for selling the power at good 
rates and for long terms. The business came faster 
than we could handle it so that our capacity was soon 
overtaxed resulting in our having to equip a 2,000 
H.P. steam plant in Tacoma as a temporary relay 
while we were doubling the capacity at the Falls. We 
pulled the street railways, smelters, flour mills, ma- 
chine shops, lighting, etc. With Snoqualmie only half 
loaded and with White River not finished nor in oper- 
ation, our enterprise was clearing at the time I was 
euchred out of it after my father's death as related 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 205 

further on, about $100,000 a year after paying all 
expenses and fixed charges, and this surplus we al- 
ways applied to White River construction and Sno- 
qualmie extensions. The following statement shows 
the gross earnings, expenses and profit for the year 
1904, which year closed with my banishment from the 
company : — 

Xet 
Maintenance Earnings 

Gross and from Bond Other 

Month. Earnings. Expenses. Operations. Interest. Interest. Surplus. 

fanuary $22,733.95 $7,693.85 $15,040.10 $4,020.83 $1,176.78 $9,842.49 

February 22,290.41 7,174.13 15,116.28 3,908.33 1,317.08 9,890.87 

March 20,631.98 8,030.95 12,601.03 3,908.33 1,349.33 7,343.37 

April 19,571.59 8,449.46 11,122.13 3,908.33 1,424.62 5,789.18 

May 19,581.55 8,773.34 10,808.21 3,908.33 1,653.15 5,246.73 

June 18,898.78 8,288.64 10,610.14 3,908.33 1,578.44 5,123.37 

July 16,139.05 9,871.55 6,267.50 3,908.33 1,585.54 773.63 

August 18,146.38 7,966.18 10,180.20 3,908.33 1,695.94 4,575.93 

September 20,147.64 7,816.09 12,331.55 3,908.33 1,672.86 6,750.36 

October 24,947.10 8,860.73 16,086.37 3,908.33 1,604.39 10,573.65 

November 25,103.40 9,251.01 15,852.39 4,462.50 236.69 11,626.58 

December 25,596.49 11,224.92 14,371.57 4,462.50 1,957.30 7,951.77 

Total $253,788.32 $102,400.85 $150,387.47 $48,120.80 $16,778.74 $85,487.93 

It will be observed that the company's operating cost 
was only 40 per cent of its gross earnings, an extraor- 
dinary showing and not equalled anywhere else that 
I am aware. This favorable showing is due to the 
permanent style of construction and simplicity of 
design. It should be here noted that March, April and 
May earnings were shrunk as a result of a fire at Sno- 
qualmie Falls, which destroyed the transforming plant 
and temporarily crippled the capacity of the plant. 
It should be noted also that the Seattle Electric Com- 
pany load was dropped at one stroke in July as the 
first move on our part to get rid of that undesirable 
customer, and this shrunk the earnings for that month 
$4,500.00. Had there been no untoward incidents 
such as those referred to, the net earnings would have 



206 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

been normally about $ 12,000 more, and the ratio of 
expense to earnings would have then been 38 per cent. 
With the doubling of the capacity by a 10 per cent in- 
crease in our investment, which I had nearly com- 
pleted at the time of my decapitation, and the conse- 
quential increase in earnings, this ratio should have 
been reduced to 25 per cent, but it has not been pos- 
sible to improve upon the half capacity ratio above 
cited, on account of the figure head staff expense, the 
incompetent management, and the jobs which have 
since been levied on the company. I often predicted 
to Father that Snoqualmie would earn gross nearly 
three-quarters of a million dollars a year, and this 
prediction has since been fulfilled as the result of my 
doubling the capacity of the plant. 

It is apparent from the foregoing statement 
that the six per cent, upon the preferred stock of our 
company was at that time being earned with less than 
the full capacity of the original plant being taxed for 
the purpose, while we used the surplus in completing 
the building of the plant, and developing the White 
River power project. There was additionally avail- 
able for the future, the revenue to be derived from the 
sales of the residue power, together with the 10,000 
H.P. more which later came from the doubling of the 
plant, together with 60,000 H.P. more which is now 
awaiting the completion of the development at White 
River, all of which will accrue to the benefit of the 
common stock, and would eventually have made it 
worth, as I told Father, $400 to $500 per share, a 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 207 

result which would have been obtained had not the 
company, through the accident of his death, gotten 
into the hands of incompetents and unscrupulous 
manipulators. Although his life forms no further 
part of this story, yet this history will be continued 
until the final completion of the work which we had 
undertaken together. 

My father's estate was taken in charge soon after 
his death by his administrators, and my half of the 
company not yet having been segregated from his es- 
tate, was likewise taken in charge by the same ad- 
ministrators. As a result of this, both his stock and 
my own was turned against me, which he being dead 
could not prevent, nor could I. My positions and 
honors were then taken from me and given to four 
others on the inside, for it took four unacquainted with 
such work to do what I had been doing. The object 
of this was not told at that time or since, although it 
has been apparent since by what has transpired 
under the new management as hereafter related. This 
added expense was partly met by reducing the pay of 
our operators and running two shifts in 24 hours in 
place of three. This resulted in all the old men leav- 
ing and their places being given to cheap, inex- 
perienced men. It is estimated by experts that this 
"econonmy" has probably added 1 per cent to the 
annual depreciation of the plant. 

After the Snoqualmie service had demonstrated 
itself in Seattle, I then applied for franchises in 
Whatcom at the north end of Puget Sound, in Port- 



208 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

land, Oregon, about 125 miles south of Tacoma, and 
in all the intervening towns and counties, in order to 
pave the way for the "greater Snoqualmie," of which 
our accomplishment so far was but the nucleus. These 
franchises were allowed to die by my successors who 
failed to comprehend the broad scope of our enter- 
prise, so that our competitors have since seized upon 
the opportunities which we pointed out and my suc- 
cessors neglected. 

My exile from the kingdom which Father and I 
had created, which we owned together, and over 
which we held sway, seems to have been inspired for 
the purpose of eliminating all obstacles to the manipu- 
lation of the property for the private benefit of those 
who drove me out. It was an act of injustice to me, 
of reckless disregard of the interests of the stock- 
holders as has since been evident, and an insult to and 
desecration of my father's memory. Father and I built 
the plant to stand forever, and not as a stock jobbing 
scheme, with the result that there is no better built 
plant in the world, — to achieve which was my set pur- 
pose. The wisdom of this course which our oppon- 
ents at that time called "extravagant" is now daily ap- 
parent from the fact that the plant operates year in 
and year out at low expense, without any steam plant 
relay and without accidents or a second of interrup- 
tion, a record to be envied by the most up-to-date 
steam plant. Because nature had done so much in 
facilitating and simplifying our operations, and be- 
cause we spent no money in submitting to graft, our 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 209 

plant cost only half as much per H.P. as most other 
plants have done, although Father and I paid dearly 
for this result in the trials and tribulations which we 
endured by not submitting to graft. 

Although the Snoqualmie project was inspired as 
related to deliver me from a financial dilemma, yet it 
has been too tardy to perform that duty on account 
of the complications arising from the death of my 
father. However, I have since been fortunate in other 
ways notwithstanding and have been able to bring a 
cloudless sky over my head again. At one time we 
thought that certain of this indebtedness would pre- 
judice the credit of the company on account of my 
being the head of it, and we therefore paid certain of 
it under Father's direction, and the amount paid out 
was charged against my interest in the partnership. 

The conception of the Snoqualmie project was in- 
spired by my unfortunate financial condition at the 
time, which I could only look forward to correcting 
when our work shall have been completed and success 
achieved. On account of this situation therefore, and 
the fact that I had resigned the Bank receivership in 
order to give up all my time to the power project I 
had a small drawing account for bare living expenses 
during the construction period as agreed to between 
my father and myself which was to be charged against 
my interest in the profits as they would later appear, — 
and I denied myself all but bare necessities in order 
to keep this down to a small sum, while at the same 
time I personally turned in from time to time to our 



210 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

joint account such money as I could spare, an account 
of which was kept in our construction books. My 
drawing account was nominally $500.00 a month, but 
I turned it all back for a year or more, then half of it, 
so that in that way I turned in something like $i5 ; ooo 
or a little over $400.00 less than I drew out. Until 
therefore, our profit in stock as above noted is divided, 
I will have received only the $400.00 referred to as 
the requital for my part of the work in producing for 
our joint account the profit of over a million and a 
half dollars, as will be shown later on. After our 
companies were in operation, I ceased availing myself 
entirely of the drawing account which had been avail- 
able to me from the partnership estate, and I there- 
after drew a small salary for living expenses from the 
parent power company as its president and chief en- 
gineer. This was in no sense adequate for the service 
rendered nor was it so considered, but I looked rather 
for my reward to the income I would be able to make 
the stock yield, half of which was mine. Although I 
also was the President and Manager of the Seattle 
Cataract Company, the Manager and Chief Engineer 
of the White River Company, which absorbed my best 
skill and energy, and the managing director of the 
Tacoma Cataract Company, yet I never at any time 
drew a cent from them for services or for managing 
our private properties, such as the Baker Block in 
Seattle. Father drew large sums in cash, bonds and 
notes from time to time which were charged to him 
in the same books where the account with me was 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 211 

kept, all of which was in accord with our mutual 
agreement. Our main profit was the fortune in Power 
Company shares, but as a byproduct of the enterprise 
we owned the Baker Building, a business block in 
Seattle which we originally built for a substation 
that proved inadequate and which I afterwards sold 
at a profit of $80,000 cash or 100 per cent upon our 
investment running six years. In addition to this 
profit Ave had enjoyed the yearly returns in rentals 
from the building of about 15 per cent net, and this 
we turned in on the Snoqualmie construction oper- 
ations. 

The several constituent companies mentioned above 
were devised by me and approved by Father, as a 
necessary and convenient expedient for handling our 
business to its best advantage, and for maintaining 
separate entities in Seattle and Tacoma, where the re- 
spective city councils sought to enact franchise re- 
quirements by which each town could dictate the pro- 
gram of our operations in the other. Later these dif- 
ficulties were removed, so that we then found it of 
advantage to put all our companies together as one 
company. To obtain the results shown, cost me not 
only my best skill, energy, patience, and hard work 
during the several years of our partnership period, but 
the more or less attention I had given to it during the 
ten years preceding our partnership relation, making 
a total period of about eighteen years, and the best 
eighteen years of my lifetime. 

Agreeable to our mutual agreement, I personally 



212 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

planned and supervised the work and the spending of 
the money. I gave this one thing all my time,- — days, 
nights and Sundays — to the exclusion of other work 
and other opportunities. "Sundays" is meant lit- 
erally, for not over ten of them in five years was I 
able to take from the work and give to my family. I 
was always in possession of the partnership property 
and the designs and secrets relating thereto. I held 
my father's general power of attorney for use in our 
joint matters, and under it I made contracts and 
incurred indebtedness in his name and in his 
behalf as the financial partner. I carried all 
the property in his name, did the construction 
and kept the books on account likewise in his 
name and with his consent. I deemed it best for 
his credit and that of our enterprise to do so. At my 
instance the Snoqualmie plant prior to its completion 
was transferred by Father to the Company which I 
had organized to receive it, for the consideration of 
$1,100,600, which was paid to him with its capital 
stock, $500,000 and its first bond issue, $600,000. 
These bonds and those issued subsequently in addi- 
tion thereto, represented the cost of the enterprise 
while the stock represented our profit. This transfer 
I made myself by his power of attorney, and the 
securities resulting from this step of my plans, I de- 
livered to him for temporary use in connection with 
the partnership, and for later division between us in ac- 
cordance with out partnership understanding. By 
agreement between us, Father carried my stock as well 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 213 

as his own, in his name, for the purpose of increasing 
his financial credit while financing our operations, and 
to more conveniently and safely conduct the financing, 
and to use the stock as collateral in connection with 
our matters when necessary. In this way he held all 
our stock and bonds and our Seattle business block 
as trustee for us both, and to use the same for our 
mutual benefit and to later divide between us, when 
our work should have been finally accomplished. The 
stock of the two Cataract companies however we 
actually did divide, as its value was only nominal, and 
it was useless as a basis of credit for the reason that 
we issued bonds against these subsidiary companies 
for the full amount of their cost. I kept my Cataract 
companies shares in Seattle while he kept his in Chi- 
cago, although his administrators took possession of 
my stock without my consent. 

As we came near to the goal to which we had been 
striving for several years, I naturally enough desired 
a division of our securities, so that I would have actual 
possession of my share of the same as a basis for my 
own credit and for my personal enjoyment. I there- 
fore asked Father in the Spring of 1903 to let me have 
my interest in the shares and real estate in my own 
hands, but he answered that he felt that we were not 
yet "out of the woods'" and that he had better still hold 
it all until our refunding plan then under way had 
been consummated. "Can't you trust me?" he said. 
He seemed to feel hurt, in that my insistance implied 
a lack of confidence in the trust I had imposed in him, 



214 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

— my own father — so with his positive promise to 
divide with me as soon as it would be safe to do so, I 
allowed the matter to rest until all uncertainties would 
be removed ; but a few months later his death delayed 
temporarily the fulfillment of his promise, so that my 
shares so dearly earned, have never yet reached my 
hands, but have since been used against me to ac- 
complish the temporary separation of myself from the 
management of my property and the levying of jobs 
upon it. Following Father's death I demanded of his 
administrators the fulfillment of his stewardship to 
me which resulted in $50,000 being offered me at one 
time as a compromise, and 10 per cent of the Power 
Company common stock at another time, both of 
which I declined, as they were but a fraction of what 
was mine. An adjustment was promised from time 
to time; — but these promises with which I was cod- 
dled along during the year of probate were not kept 
and ended in their telling me to sue, so that on the last 
day of the probate year I was compelled to bring a 
suit for the determination of my interest in our 
western properties and the segregation of my estate 
from that of my father's. My friend and champion 
in this matter has been the distinguished lawyer the 
Hon. James Hamilton Lewis, of Chicago, to whose 
learning, ability and skill, and that of his able asso- 
ciate Mr. E. N. Zoline, the final triumph of my 
cause will be largely due. When the matter was 
finally referred to an attorney with the idea of arrang- 
ing a compromise settlement of my interest in order 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 215 

to avoid the notoriety due to legal proceedings, the at- 
torney in question advised that nothing be paid to me 
in requital for what I had done and that no part of the 
$15,000 which I had invested in it be returned to me, 
and the adoption of his advice of course, has since pro- 
vided an ample living for him as the result of the thou- 
sands of dollars which he is annually charging against 
the estate in the carrying out of this program, and 
which he will continue so to do as long as there is any- 
thing to litigate about or with, for this is the ex- 
pressed intention. It was thought by those who op- 
posed me, that I had no other resource except my 
interest in the power company, and that with this 
stripped from me I would be unable to litigate for pos- 
session of my property through such a long period of 
time as the administrators with ample funds at their 
command would be able to carry it, and the fact that 
I have done so three years already has been a source 
of much perplexity to them. 

The final refusal to recognize my interest was 
based upon the technical contention that I had ne- 
glected to have the contract with my father in writing, 
and so as a penalty I would have to forfeit to his heirs 
my half of our property, representing my invention of 
the project itself as well as all the fruits of my years 
of labor and industry and devotion to our work and 
the $15,000 I had in it in cash. It is also contended 
that I did not bring my suit within the time required 
by law, and that the $400 portion of my drawing ac- 
count which I had not yet paid back, paid me in full 



216 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

for all my years of strenuous work and for my inven- 
tions which this chapter sets forth. Not even a vote of 
thanks has been received from those who seek enrich- 
ment at my hands and who in comfortable inaction 
have done nothing of consequence during the long 
and strenuous period while I upon the frontier was 
engaged in carving the Snoqualmie fortune out of 
the wilderness and defending it against the assaults 
of envy and greed. Never before in my knowledge 
has it been expected of any man to give the inventions 
of years of careful thought to any one without a dol- 
lar of compensation. Such an idea is unprecedented 
in the history of industrial development and scientific 
progress, and the world would stand still if it were 
the rule to put upon man's achievements such a ban. 
No man ever works for another for any salary alone 
as I worked in this business. No man sacrifices abso- 
lutely all other prospects, mortgages his brains to one 
thing, gives up all thoughts of any other future, 
impairs his health, strength and vitality, and suffers 
the nightmares and man killing nerve strain such as 
I have done, for any salaried compensation in money 
whatsoever, and much less would any man perform 
such a service covering a strenuous five years for the 
few dollars which I drew out of it for the mere pur- 
pose of keeping body and soul together. Father him- 
self would have been the last man in the world to be 
a party to such injustice. Half of that time I was 
away from home and many nights there was more 
work than sleep and only about ten Sundays in five 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 217 

years have I been able to be home, for that was my 
day almost invariably to be on the work in the moun- 
tains. 

It is interesting to note at this point the parallel 
situation of my brother Howard whom Father had 
backed heavily for a large interest in Butler Brothers'. 
The administrators made no claim upon this property 
as belonging to the estate, although Father's liability 
in connection therewith was in force at the time of his 
death. The principal difference appears to be that 
Howard fortunately had his Butler Brothers' property 
in his own hands when Father died, while my Sno- 
qualmie property was still in Father's custody at the 
time of his unfortunate death. The legal status of the 
two cases is similar, and both situations involved 
Father in the purpose of helping each of us in our 
particular lines. There was no thought that either 
of us should work out a fortune for the rest of the 
family and other relatives. It is quite likely that if 
"Charley Baker's Folly" had lived up to its misnomer, 
I would have been left unmolested in my possession of it. 

Although the absence of a written contract has 
been made much of by those who seek to acquire my 
interest in the property which I created, yet the exist- 
ence of the partnership relation was well known to 
many of Father's friends to whom he stated it and 
who have made affidavits to that effect and the fre- 
quent references to our joint properties in his let- 
ters to me verv clearly bear it out. In this connec- 



218 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

tion it may be interesting for me to quote from several 
A of his letters to me as follows : 

Aug. 31, 1898. "In the first place, we do not want any 

partners if we can help it. Of course 17 years is quite a 

long time, and may be as long as we shall be in business, but 
if we should want to sell the property, the length of franchise 
would be an important element in fixing values. " 

Mar. 6, 1899. "You may be right on the auxiliary com- 
pany business if it ever comes to that; however, we must 
retain not one-half but a majority." 

Mar. 13, 1899. "I am unable to see from what you have 
written what advantage it can be to us. I do not, however, 
think it wise to let anybody know that we have control even 
temporarily of the White River scheme. 1 see by the clip- 
ping you sent that others are looking out for power locations ; 
/ wonder why some of them don't offer to buy us out." 

Aug. 23, 1901. "I do not know exactly whether it will be 
advisable to let Stone & Webster know we have bought the 
White River. What do you think?" 

Mar. 25, 1902. "When Mr. Hill was here he talked as if 
he would buy or sell. What do you suppose he would pay for 
our plant?" 

June 5, 1902. "Maybe Sam Hill will call on me when he 
comes East, but I have no particular desire to see him. I 
presume he wants to sell, and not to buy us out." 

June 30, 1902. "I told him (Hill) the same as you did, 
that we could not go into a consolidation on the 5% basis 
while we had our development incomplete." 

Dec. 17, 1902. "Now Henry comes down on me with a 
proposition to buy the ' C ommercial-W est! I do not know 
but he has already done it, on the expectation that I am to put 
up the money. I have never put up anything for either Bertha 
or Henry as / have for you and Howard." 

Mar. 16, 1903. "Their proposition (Stone & Webster) 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 219 

was to increase their preferred stock to $1,500,000 and pay us 
the additional $500,000 even up for our Snoqualmie stock:' 

May 19, 1903. "If we could get legal possession of our 
White River property, I should want to sell the building and 
use the money for development, but that appears to be as far 
away as ever. If the court had not made up its mind to beat 
us, he would not do us the injustice of holding us up indefi- 
nitely." 

A strong effort has been made by those who seek 
my undoing, to secure retractions from those who 
made the affidavits in my behalf, but this attempt 
failed, as evidently the truth of yesterday must be the 
truth of today. I have been repeatedly slandered to 
these witnesses for the same purpose, and a syste- 
matic crusade against my credit has been continually 
waged in the belief that thus undermined I would be 
unable to carry my end of this expensive litigation 
with the entire exchequer of the administrators 
opposed to me. 

It is interesting to note at this point, that three 
years after Father's death, the administrators and 
present managers had secretly arranged to sell both 
Father's and my stock to our competitors, who had 
never ceased wanting to own our company, and this 
was to be done without consulting me in the matter. 
However, the intending purchasers, with business 
caution, had their lawyers review the situation as to 
its legal aspects, with the result that they insisted that 
my relinquishment would be necessary in order to 
gain the title. This of course made a little stir, as 
my claims had been very lightly regarded. I was then 



220 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

made aware that considerable money would be paid 
me and I would be retained to complete my building 
of the White River plant if I would consent to the 
selling out or consolidation, and if I did not do so they 
would thereafter withhold dividends from the stock- 
holders. I however told them that persuasion of this 
sort did not interest me, that I had no wish to make 
money at the expense of the stockholders, and that 
my consent would be forthcoming only upon the cor- 
rection of wrongs done to certain stockholders whom 
I had interested in the company, and the restitution to 
the company of certain private and illegal profits 
which the president and some of the directors had 
made at the expense of the stockholders, and there the 
matter has since rested. 

The death of my father was a staggering blow to 
me and to our enterprise, for our work was not yet 
entirely done, and the bulk of his part of it — the final 
financing — was yet entirely to be done. I estimate 
that three-fourths of a million dollars would not cover 
the subsequent damage to our property due to the 
recklessness, incompetency and trickery of those who 
by the accident of his death became a vampire at the 
throat of the project. The enterprise could no longer 
have the support which his credit gave it. His burden 
I then had to take up in addition to my own. I 
immediately went to Mr. George Westinghouse, who 
had been Father's friend as well as my own, and after 
explaining my situation, asked him to authorize his 
company to extend a credit to our company of $100,000 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 221 

for at least a year. This he gladly did. I next went 
to the Aluminum Company and asked them to do 
the same for about $50,000, and the Waterwheel Com- 
pany for about $35,000, which they both did. This 
was necessary, for prior to his death we had under- 
taken the doubling of the waterwheel and generator 
capacity of the plant and also the aluminum trans- 
mission system. Then after the administrators of 
Father's estate found themselves unable to borrow any 
money for current needs of the company, I went to 
Tacoma and upon the recommendation of my friend, 
Mr. George Browne, there, I was able to borrow for 
the company from the Fidelity Bank of which he was 
a director, $26,000. It was necessary for me to 
endorse this note personally in order to get the loan, 
which of course I did not hesitate to do on account 
of being the company's sponsor and a half owner in 
it. I asked the other heirs to endorse this note with 
me on account of their prospective inheritance from 
Father's share in the company, but they thought the 
risk too great and preferred to let it rest upon me 
alone. As a further means of raising ready cash, 
I persuaded the Tacoma Smelter, our largest cus- 
tomer, to pay up its bill for power one year in advance, 
which meant another $12,000. 

Shortly after making these temporary financial 
arrangements I consolidated our four companies into 
one at values which competent judges had appraised 
them at, and called it Snoqualmie Falls & White River 
Power Company, capitalized at $3,000,000, for the 



222 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

properties had become very valuable by this time and 
were well worth that sum. The name was later 
changed to the one it now carries, viz., Seattle-Tacoma 
Power Company, and the Company was then recapi- 
talized as follows : — 

$1,250,000 6 per cent Preferred Stock, 
2,250,000 Common Stock, 



Total, $3,500,000 Capital Stock. 

This completed the plan we had been working on sev- 
eral months prior to Father's death but which had 
been temporarily held up by Stone & Webster's attack 
on our White River Company. This consolidated 
company created a mortgage of $7,500,000 upon all 
its property, under which it issued $1,500,000 of 
bonds, which were sold to N. W. Harris & Company 
under a contract which I made with them for their 
purchase, but which they repudiated a few months 
after. A popular conundrum which wore itself 
threadbare for about a year in the Power Company 
office was: "When is a contract not a contract ?" 
Answer: "When it is made with Harris & Company." 
A year later, however, they again agreed with the 
administrators to purchase the bonds at the same price 
(92), and this time they carried out their contract, 
upon a more favorable basis to them. They had in the 
interval loaned the estate $475,000 which was paid 
up when the bonds were finally taken by them. The 
administrators gave them a one-seventh interest in 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 223 

the Company as a present at the time this loan was 
made, and the loan was secured by a pledge of the 
entire estate. These bonds refunded all previous 
issues of parent and subsidiary companies, and pro- 
vided for doubling the capacity of the plant at the 
Falls and the transmission system, as well as extend- 
ing the system in Seattle and Tacoma. Since my 
departure from the Company contemporaneously with 
the purchase of this issue of bonds as hereafter related, 
additional bonds have been issued for extending the 
system, and to enable the new president and some of 
the directors to privately speculate in an ice factory 
which they unloaded on the Company, at an expense 
of $380,000. The total bonds issued represent the 
cost of the enterprise as a whole and the stock our 
profit. 

While my negotiations with the Harris firm were 
pending I took advantage of a waiting interval to go 
to New York to develop two other lines which I had 
previously begun by correspondence with the aid of 
the Westinghouse Company. While in New York I 
was actually offered a syndicate arrangement for buy- 
ing up my father's interest in the Company but I did 
not favor this as I wished to have Father's heirs con- 
tinue in the Company and enjoy the profit which I 
believed they would realize in so doing. I also secured 
a bid of 90 for our bonds without any sweetening and 
conditioned that I would remain with the Company 
as its Manager and would have my life insured for 
the benefit of the Company for the sum of $200,000, 



224 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

as the New York bankers naturally felt that I was the 
chief asset of the Company. The bid of Harris & 
Company was promised at about this time, so I intro- 
duced the administrators to them by letter and asked 
them to get it for me and advise me by wire. They 
wired that 92 was offered and I, therefore, terminated 
my negotiations in New York with the explanation 
that Harris & Company had made a better price and 
secured the business. The one-seventh interest in the 
Company, however, as a present exacted by Harris 
was a later development, but as I had burned our 
bridges behind us in New York there was nothing to 
do except to submit to any revised terms which 
Harris might then demand and the administrators 
agree to. 

Much has been said and written about this Sno- 
qualmie Falls power plant, so absolutely unique, and 
standing alone as it does in the annals of Hydro- 
Electric Engineering. Housed in a great cavern hol- 
lowed out of the rock 300 feet under ground, it is the 
only naturally fireproof and earthquake proof plant 
extant. Scientists, public men and managers have 
come from all parts of the world to see its wondrous 
stupendousness, and withal simplicity. I entertained 
at different times such visitors as Mr. M. LeBaudy, of 
Paris, Baron Von Ketler, General in Chief of the 
German Army, Admiral Schley, of Spanish War 
fame, and the Commercial Club of Chicago, sometimes 
called the "Billionaire Club." General Von Ketler, 
who was closing a tour of the world at the time, pro- 




Centennial Mill, Operated by Snoqualmie Power. 






^"■■^f^ri^ 



' * ,-t 



** iv >' , Kh rft*r 




White River Power Plant, 60,000 H.P. 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 225 

nounced it the greatest work he had seen. The Com- 
mercial Club which visited the power plant at Sno- 
qualmie Falls upon its 10,000 mile tour around the 
country were so impressed by what they saw — and 
it was not then completed — that their opinion very 
freely expressed was that this plant was the only fea- 
ture of their entire itinerary that rivalled in interest 
the sublime Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. 
They wanted to buy it. President McKinley planned 
to visit this plant and plant a tree there, but was 
deterred by the illness of his wife, while President 
Roosevelt had the same expectation but was deterred 
by the local politicians who preferred to arrange some 
other program for his entertainment. 

III. 

(Several names used in this section are fictitious and are 
designated A, B, C, etc., for convenience, in place of the 
real names which the characters bear.) 

So much for a brief recital of the results obtained 
through our relation as partners in this enterprise. 
The dramatic part of the story, however, running 
parallel with the rest of it, is not told in the busy 
water wheels, the raging river, the humming motors 
thirty to fifty miles away, or the dividends earned, 
but is reflected in the nightmares and sleepless nights, 
the worries, the sickness, the heartache, and tre- 
mendous expenditure of mind force, nerve force, 
patience and energy, which only we two knew about 
in its fullness and acuteness, and which only we two 



226 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

endured as a part of our contribution to the achieve- 
ment; none of which a stranger would ever dream of 
as he looked upon the finished work. 

Our enterprise had been for a short time after its 
birth, serenely jogging along as a young infant that 
had come into the world with much acclaim of joy 
from the people who looked upon it as their future 
deliverer from extortionate prices for light and power. 
The whole Puget Sound country looked upon it as a 
future benefit to their communities. But suddenly in its 
pathway, this promising infant soon met face to face a 
giant conspiracy to kill it which was engineered by 
and for the benefit of the E. Company, one of the 
largest of American electrical companies, M. & N., 
and a number of thieves and grafters in Seattle and 
Tacoma. This drew us into a war for the defence of 
our property, which lasted five long years and is with- 
out a parallel in the history of similar enterprises. 

Father and I started out upon this enterprise upon 
the theory that it would be a popular project in Seattle 
and Tacoma. It was indeed popular among the people 
at large who had been paying high rates for lighting 
and power, and who had been riding on street car sys- 
tems whose poor service was due as much as anything 
to inadequate and uncertain power. There was every 
reason, therefore, for the public to herald our coming 
with approbation, enthusiasm and pleasure, but never- 
theless we invoked by our operations the opposition 
and emnity of those mentioned. Very soon after we 
had begun our construction operations, the E. Com- 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 

pany began a most hostile warfare upon us, as a 
means of securing by compulsion our orders for elec- 
trical machinery and for the purpose of wrecking us 
afterwards; — that is to hammer us with threats, and 
injure us as they could until we would yield to the 
purchase of machinery from them without considering 
other concerns which might wish to compete for the 
same. Mr. A. noted for his cunning, was their prin- 
cipal agent in the Puget Sound country, and he was 
ably assisted by two lawyers, Mr. B. in Tacoma and 
Mr. C. in Seattle. They devised an opposition com- 
pany, proposing to utilize the power of a neighboring 
creek for the purpose of drawing the public favor 
from us to themselves and for the apparent purpose 
of diverting prospective revenue from us to them. 
This company was on paper only, and never came to 
actual realization, but it had its use for the time being 
as a club for the purposes intended and for bedevilling 
us generally. 

Negotiations were begun both in Seattle and Chi- 
cago with the E. Company and the Westinghouse 
Company for our electrical apparatus. As soon as 
the plans for the construction of the Snoqualmie plant 
were definitely settled upon, I went East for the pur- 
pose of placing the orders for the electrical machinery, 
transmission wires, insulators, etc. Bids had already 
been filed to cover these and Father had practically 
promised the contracts on the tenders made. I how- 
ever, proceeded to the different factories represented, 
negotiated the business anew, and made these con- 



228 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

tracts myself at a total saving to us of over thirty thou- 
sand dollars less than the prices bid. This was the first 
order of any size on the boards in the United States since 
the panic, and there was therefore most ardent com- 
petition for it among the manufacturers of apparatus 
and supplies such as we were in the market for. We 
commanded ample money for the purchase of what we 
needed, and we desired the best goods in return there- 
for. We asked no one to take our bonds in payment, 
not to extend us credit. We wanted the best that cash 
could buy. 

Mr. A.'s plan was to drive us into buying from his 
company, regardless of any views we had on the sub- 
ject. I finally however contracted to purchase our 
electrical apparatus from the Westinghouse Company 
at slightly higher prices than the E. Co. (which we 
concluded would be an unsafe alliance) had offered, 
and this deal carried with it the option to purchase the 
stock of the White River Company heretofore referred 
to in this narrative. This precipitated a great war 
upon us, which was intensified by the ill feeling the 
E. Company had always had for me personally because 
of my previously winning certain electrical contracts 
which they had expected to get. They had pre- 
empted the Puget Sound country as their particular 
pasture with the idea that they held a divine title 
thereto, and my presuming to make a living at their 
disadvantage was regarded by them as a piece of 
ambitious impudence which could not be forgiven nor 
forgotten. 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 229 

The warfare to which my father and I were sub- 
jected as a result of our operations was conducted 
against us with the skill and determination of an army 
general. They still hoped to upset our contract with 
the Westinghouse Company. Their idea was to 
attack our project at every turn, to knock the props 
from under it, and by a protracted system of bluster 
and bulldozing, to finally scare us into repudiating 
with Westinghouse and making a contract for our 
machinery with the E. Company. Mr. A. then 
revealed their purpose of developing the power of the 
neighboring creek in opposition to us, unless we 
bought machinery from them and consolidated with 
them. We declined to consolidate our material project 
with their myth. 

The next point of attack against us was in the 
matter of franchises which they proclaimed we could 
not get in either town without their co-operation and 
consent. They had their spies abroad, and every word 
that I uttered in the committee conferences of the city 
councils was promptly repeated to their headquarters 
in the East. In the beginning, our project was 
regarded as a boon to the two cities. Under the tac- 
tics employed the City Councils were led to believe 
that we were the public enemy. The conspiracy was 
not only local, but the campaign of threats and misrep- 
resentations was carried on in Chicago at the same 
time. My father in Chicago was finally peremptorily 
informed by the E. Company that if I did not come 
East at once and arrange matters to their satisfaction 



230 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

"we would have to take the consequences." I did not 
obey. Like ubiquitous highwaymen they always 
struck from behind and in the dark, so that our imagi- 
nations were constantly taxed to divine their next 
move. 

It was early in the history of the conspiracy that 
the E. Company employed the before mentioned 
whisker-begrimed elfin lawyer-man of versatile 
speech from Seattle, named C, who went East and 
called upon my father, threatening annihilation of 
our project if we did not come to terms with the E. 
Company. Father rebuked him for his impudence 
and ordered him out of his office. His opinion of him 
is clearly enough defined in his letters to me from 
which I quote: 

May 14, 1898. "In view of my talk with , you 

had better give it out that you are likely to start East in a 
few days; they may have somebody, C, perhaps, on the look- 
out, and he is just the sort of a fellow who would lend himself 
to buying a common council." 

June 17, 1898. "Your interview in the paper indicates 
that you are not afraid to have C know why you delay coming 
East. I am more afraid of him than of A." 

We therefore had C. on our list as one to avoid, 
but his grasshopper antics were always to me more 
a source of amusement than of apprehension. 

One of their first moves was to attack the title to 
our property at Snoqualmie Falls, using for this pur- 
pose the Northern Pacific Railroad as a tool, Mr. B. 
being attorney for that railroad as well as for our 
opponent. He caused the railroad company to make 






POWER DEVELOPMENTS 231 

a demand upon us for possession of the Falls, alleging 
that they held a prior and substantial title thereto. 
Their contention had its foundation in an ancient, 
abandoned and obsolete right of way easement for a 
railroad line to which the Northern Pacific fell heir 
from the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway. 
There was no foundation for the claim, and I soon 
after laid the situation before President Chas. S. 
Mellen of the Northern Pacific, in St. Paul, who stated 
to me that "If my explanation was correct, his com- 
pany w T ould be playing the part of a blackmailer in 
pursuing it," and he therefore ordered an investiga- 
tion. As a result of that investigation, a quitclaim 
deed from that company was soon sent to us. It was 
easy to divine the purpose of this latest move by A. 
It was thought undoubtedly that our operations had 
progressed to such a point, that in order to go on with 
the work, the property would have to be bonded and 
loans placed upon it, which would be impossible to 
do under a clouded title, but fortunately we were not 
dependent upon this property nor upon any other 
property for funds. 

Finally after several weeks, the E. Company 
offered a truce, and argeed to do nothing further 
offensive during my absence if I would go East and 
take up negotiations with them, but I did not go until 
our franchise in Seattle was granted, and then I went 
East in order to place the contracts as above related. 
During my absence, however, A/s local agents violated 
the pledge and still kept up their hostility to our 



232 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

project, trying to break up power contracts made with 
our company, stating that the thousands of dollars we 
were spending was only a bluff; stating that Sno- 
qualmie Falls ran dry every summer and froze solid 
in the winter; stating that any power contracts we 
made could not possibly be carried out ; that no water 
power had ever yet successfully driven an electric 
lighting system, although in the same breath they 
urged that it could be successfully done from their 
neighboring creek owing to some specially endowed 
qualities of that highly gifted stream. The threats were 
made continually that they would bring vast stores 
of power to Seattle from the neighboring creek and 
run us into bankruptcy. 

The war against our Seattle franchise as waged by 
the E. Company was long and bitter, and the usual 
unscrupulous methods of that Company were 
employed in full force. The public kept a keen eye 
upon the situation, and for this reason their plotting 
was under greater restraint than would otherwise 
have been the case. As it was however, different 
members of the city council were unduly influenced, 
and so I had to accept a franchise full of harsh and 
almost unworkable restrictions in place of the liberal 
one demanded by the public, and such an one as an 
enterprise like ours was worthy of. Father had 
known something of the E. Company's methods before 
and he wrote: 

Feb. 20, 1899. "I have never doubted the fight the E. Co. 
were going to set up on us, so could not share your optimism. 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 233 

They are willing to do anything to beat us and as they have 
started on bribery, they will not stop. I am surprised at the 
price they are paying aldermen, as they could better afford 
to pay ten times $200 per head than for us to get the franchise." 
After their failure to defeat the Seattle franchise, 
the campaign was shifted bodily to Tacoma under the 
direction of Mr. B., attorney for the E. Company, and 
Mr. D., a professional lobbyist. Mr. B. proved him- 
self a better manipulator of men than the Seattle 
coterie had shown themselves to be, and as a result 
the Tacoma Council voted down the application for a 
franchise there. The Tacoma Council was generally 
thought to be owned body, soul and breeches by our 
enemy. The matter then rested in Tacoma for several 
months until public indignation became aroused and 
got to a white heat, and then a new Council in that 
city took the matter up again for consideration. Now 
came a crisis in the situation, and the E. Company 
immediately gave orders to have the franchise killed, 
or failing in that to have it so loaded down with 
iniquity that I would decline it. Their local super- 
intendent took active charge of the conspiracy out- 
side of the Council, and one of the Councilmen became 
their agent within it. Between these two, a series of 
most ingenious manoeuvres were planned, with, how- 
ever little success. Public interest in the discussion 
became ardent, and prominent citizens filled the audi- 
ence chamber at the meetings, so that in a measure 
they were kept at bay. The Tacoma Daily Ledger 
then took up the fight in behalf of the citizens, and 
showed up clearly the attitude of the E. Company, 



234 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

and through its columns hundreds of citizens entered 
their protest against the octopus whose tentacles had 
been upon them for so many years. This made the 
situation desperate for the E. Company, which it was 
said had put an active agent in the field to unduly 
influence the councilmen, but be it said however to 
the credit of the city, this plan met with little success. 
Then sensational articles were published about a 
gigantic syndicate taking up the neighboring creek 
power company, and bringing down water power by 
the many thousands of horse power to both cities, and 
about a galaxy of millionaires buying up the street 
railways of Tacoma through the influence of the E. 
Company, but after a few days of telegraphing and 
investigation by the Tacoma Daily Ledger these yarns 
were shown to be fairy stories, invented for the purpose 
of subtracting from the popular support accorded to 
our Snoqualmie project. All this in the end served 
as a boomerang in favor of the Snoqualmie Company, 
so that the E. Company was compelled to yield to the 
wishes of the citizens, and finally the council voted 
the franchise into a law. 

As soon as the Tacoma Franchise was granted one 
of the principal councilmen wrote me a letter stating 
that he had $100.00 for investment, and wanted me 
to approach my father on the subject of investing it 
for him on the Chicago Board of Trade in such a 
manner as would return him a profit of $125.00 a 
month. This was certainly a delicate way of putting 
it, but, as Mark Anthony would have said of the 



_ __._.__ 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 235 

average Tacoma Councilmen, "and these are honor- 
able men," I of course answered the communication in 
an equally polite vein that Father could not undertake 
a Board of Trade transaction on so small a scale and 
that he could not in any event guarantee results. I 
was apparently too obtuse to see what was wanted. 

After our cause had been consistently championed 
for a considerable time by the daily newspapers, the 
Tacoma Ledger turned bitterly against us and began 
to attempt our undoing at a time when we most needed 
their support. The fact that we refused to submit to 
a graft of $3,000 levied by it may have had something 
to do with it. Then later the Tacoma Daily News 
followed suit, experiencing its change of heart over 
night, and what happened during that night to change 
its attitude can be guessed fairly correctly. The owner 
of the News soon acquired the Ledger, and we were 
daily bombarded through their news and editorial 
columns by shots which invariably came from the 
direction of the camp of our enemy. The most artistic 
iies were invented for news items for the purpose of 
discrediting our service and keeping us from getting 
franchises and power contracts in the City and County, 
while our opponent was given a most saintly charac- 
ter, that became it as well as would a halo on the 
head of Satan. 

It was of vital importance to the citizens that we 
should live in order that the opposition to us should 
not override them with its arrogant monopoly. And 
so a political issue crystalized out of the situation 



236 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 



which had a run of about two years, in which at the 
elections the people offered their ticket familiarly 
known as the "Baker ticket" against the corruption or 

"SNOQUALMIE BAKER" LEADING THE 
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 




Tacoma Ledger cartoon during power fight. President C. H. Baker is 
represented as riding his hobby horse "Snoqualmie" in the 
interest of Seattle as opposed to Tacoma, while Mayor 
Campbell and the other officials of Tacoma 
join the procession. 

"ring ticket" put up by the E. Company. The "ring 
ticket" was invariably defeated, which event the citi- 
zens usually celebrated by hanging in effigy from a 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 237 

telegraph pole in the business center the dwarflike 
owner of the Tacoma papers whose warfare had been 
so bitter upon us. I was cartooned daily by both 
papers during the campaign as a tyrant and a hypno- 
tist who had corrupted the esteemed Mayor Campbell 
with whom I was represented as conspiring to sap 
Tacoma for the benefit of Seattle. This free car- 
tooning was worth more to our Company than any 
paid advertising could possibly have been. 

The opposition to our various franchises took the 
form of undue influence, and we believe that con- 
siderable corrupt money was spent to defeat us. 
Tainted money is thought to have found its way from 
the opposition even into the ranks of our own men. 
The contract for the penstock at the Falls which was 
to conduct the water from the river above to the water 
wheels below, was in the hands of a superintendent 
sent from the East by the contractors, who apparently 
had been corrupted by the enemy. It was necessary 
to have this penstock completed and in operation at 
a given date in order to save our franchise, which 
called for the delivery of power at certain specified 
dates. The joints of this penstock were padded with 
chunks of lead so that when it was completed it would 
not have held sand, much less water. This foreman 
was removed and another one promptly put in his 
place, who practically had to rebuild the work at great 
expense to his employers in order to make it water 
tight. 

Stories were circulated locally and in the East that 



238 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

our power chamber at the Falls was submerged dur- 
ing the high water periods in the river ; that the river 
leaked through the roof of the same in great torrents 
drowning out both men and machinery ; that the rocks 
in the roof were loose and were continually falling 
upon the men and machinery below, and that in self 
protection the men had to wear firemen's helmets to 
save their heads, and to go attired in gum boots and 
rubber clothing to keep from being drowned, when in 
fact the place is as dry and as safe as a lady's sitting 
room. All the stories that an evil and desperate 
genius could invent, and all the deviltry which could 
be devised was perpetrated by the opposition, who it 
was said, engaged men to give all their time to this 
particular department of their business. The object 
was to utterly destroy our property and our prospects, 
and all this had to be defended against by me. I alone 
bore the brunt of it, and watched for it, not knowing 
where and when the snake would strike next, while 
Father at the other end of a 2,000 mile telegraph line 
was kept constantly in touch with the situation by me. 
The credit of our company was attacked, and my 
father's personal credit was attacked, and I was por- 
trayed before the minds of councilmen and legislators 
as a man of the worst character imaginable, as an 
ordinary gambler and as a person continually intoxi- 
cated, as one of great extravagance, and as a visionary 
fool without ability bent upon breaking my father. It 
is hardly necessary to comment upon these allegations 
if this statement is to be read by any person who has 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 239 

any knowledge of me whatsoever, and is mindful of 
the results obtained. In any event, my father believed 
in me to the core, and that to me was sufficient. He 
believed in my honesty and honorable instincts. He 
believed in my ability. He knew that I could fight if I 
had to, and that I was not afraid to do so, if necessary 
to defend our property. He often declared that I had 
a talent for negotiation, organization and manage- 
ment, and a look at the companies developed by me 
would seem to vindicate his judgment. The substantial 
endorsement of me in this work by him, — one of this 
country's great business men, is certainly more than 
an offset for the invidious wailing of our enemies 
who had ulterior motives to actuate them. 

However, these were the methods pursued and 
carried out to the extreme wherever possible and at 
all times. People who later bought bonds of our 
Company were filled with these stories in order to 
create distrust in their minds. People who wished to 
buy bonds and wrote out to Seattle or Tacoma for 
information upon the subject nearly always received 
replies in which the enterprise was knocked upon one 
score or another. Whenever these replies could be 
located a prompt correction was always demanded and 
received. Many came from unknown sources. At 
one time we put out decoys under the plan of having 
some of our heavy financial friends in the East write 
to our opponents for opinions on the plant. M. & N. 
were written to in such a way and replied that they 
"understood there was such a company as the Sno- 



240 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

qualmie but they knew very little about it." How- 
ever, prior to this time, they had made an elaborate 
thirty-page contract with us for five thousand H.P. 
for twenty-five years, obligating themselves to pay 
us $90,000 a year, and yet "they knew nothing about 
us." We were often stifled with faint praise, which 
was worse than open condemnation. This crusade 
caused an utter failure of Mason, Lewis & Co.'s first 
attempt to place our bonds in the open market. It was 
not until by accident that I found Mr. Demming, a 
capitalist from Terre Haute, Ind., in a Seattle hotel, 
and hired a special train and took him out to the Falls 
and convinced him by what he saw that we were no 
fake, that we were able to make a market. He took 
$100,000 of the bonds, and the balance quickly went 
thereafter on their merits in the open market at our 
own price and without any stock sweetening, much 
to the dismay of M. & N., A., B., C, and the rest of the 
coterie. These bonds sold later at 103. Father wrote 
me such letters as these concerning the knocking we 
were getting as it came to him: 

Jan. 11th, 1901. "Even your friend Mr. Latimer stated 
to a party that you had stuck me three or four hundred thou- 
sand dollars by extravagance in construction. This you must not 
speak of to Latimer, as I cannot at present tell you more about 

it, and as he has written a fairly good letter about it, we 

can perhaps afford to let it pass. It seems, however, that we 
have had a bad reputation generally. The only explanation 
I can make to them is that it is the first plant of any kind that 
has been constructed west of the Rocky Mts., that was built 
as thoroughly as it should be built, and that people who are 
familiar with cheap construction call this 'extravagance.' ' 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 241 

Sept. 29th, 1902. "Harris of Mason, Lewis & Co., says that 
the people who find fault with our bonds will not tell him 
what it is nor who it is from, only that they have 'unfavorable 
reports.' He says the letter Smith wrote to his mother (which 
was the only one he saw) was very different from the one he 
gave Hardin. The Milwaukee Trust Company was one of 
the purchasers, but had bad reports, and sold their bonds, and 
advised others to do so. They (M. L. & Co.) have bought 
these, and found other purchasers for them. He says a repre- 
sentative of M. & N., in Terre Haute, who came from Seattle, 
tells bond holders there the property is no good. There was 
about $100,000 placed in Terre Haute, but the people there 
are not disturbed yet. He says N. W. Harris & Co., were 
actually bearing our bonds all the time they had them for 
sale." 

The warfare against our enterprise continued in 
various shapes and phases with unrelenting vigor to 
the time of my father's untimely death. It partook 
of all the various colors and forms of deviltry which 
the ingenuity of a mind fertile in such expedients could 
conceive. We were pitted at all times against the 
corrupt money of the opposition together with their 
galaxy of resourceful minds. 

The greatest and most vital issue which we ever 
had, and the one which redounds more to my own 
credit than anything else, was the killing of the neigh- 
boring creek power proposition (alluded to before in 
this narrative) proposed by A. and C. for the purpose 
of defeating our project. I began an agitation against 
this through the Seattle Daily Times, founded upon 
such reasonable logic and facts that the City rose 
in indignation against them. This project had for 



242 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

its purpose not only our destruction, but the corralling 
of the city water supply as well. By showing that this 
proposed plant meant pollution of Seattle's future 
water supply, I manoeuvred to turn the wrath of the 
whole city upon these people, which became so over- 
whelming that they very promptly laid down, and 
their scattered assets were later sold out to the City, 
and the entire water shed of the neighboring creek 
to the summit of the Cascade Mountains was at my 
suggestion, condemned for the purpose of the future 
Seattle water supply as it is now in operation today. 
In this connection I have often been called the 
"Father of Seattle's Water Supply System/' — for it 
really had its birth at my instigation, and in my posi- 
tion taken against the A. and C. people who were con- 
spiring to euchre the people out of it, and to ruin us at 
the same time. 

In the beginning, by the grace of our enemies, our 
enterprise was locally dubbed "Charley Baker's folly," 
and continued under this misnomer until the wheels 
began to turn and power was actually delivered. It 
has since more frequently been called "Charley 
Baker's Gold Mine." Even my friends thought we 
were up against a hopeless task, and the warmest of 
them advocated surrender to the enemy, even at a 
loss. Even men in our own company held at times the 
same views, and at times the unrelenting opposition 
to us was so great that Father, notwithstanding all 
the stubbornness and bravery and strength of his 
nature, was inclined to yield and deliver the situation 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 243 

to our opponents who coveted it, and take what we 
could get out of it. Perhaps the greatest task I had 
in this whole enterprise was to keep Father from fal- 
tering at times before our enterprise had progressed 
far enough to prove itself, which would have meant 
therefore, taking less money than we had in it, because 
of the fact that it was at the time still undemonstrated. 
The one great mistake and the only serious one 
made in the carrying out of our enterprise, and the 
one about which is grouped all the vicissitudes and 
worries of every sort which we had, was the contract 
tying us up with M. & N. for 5,000 H.P. for twenty- 
five years. I must be excused from this error although 
in this connection I do not wish to blame my father 
either. He was anxious that we should have peace 
with our opponents, and that our company should be 
able to show a fixed income at the beginning of its 
operations. I desired the same myself, but believed 
it a wiser policy to sell our power to the public direct 
instead of compelling it to pay a middleman's profits. 
The five thousand H.P. contract purported to mean a 
revenue of $90,000 per annum, and it seemed as if 
this would have great weight in selling our bonds 
when the time came to do so. The terms of this con- 
tract isolated us practically from the power and light- 
ing field ; that is to say, we agreed upon our part to do 
no lighting nor to serve power in smaller amounts 
than 100 H.P. nor to serve power to street railroad 
companies at all. In other words, we practically 
agreed to deal with no one except M. & N., and they, 



244 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

therefore, with the ramifications of their system prac- 
tically absorbed the entire field. In other words, to 
use their own language as they proclaimed it from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, they "had us bottled up," and 
our very relations with them did more to create dis- 
trust in our company from the bondbuyer's stand- 
point than anything else. The contract was known as 
a "gentleman's agreement," but from the moment 
it was signed their conspiracy against us was resumed 
in all its worst forms, including withholding large 
sums due us for power service. Not to go into details 
of the history of our relations with M. & N. under this 
contract, suffice it to say that in about a year, both the 
Seattle and Tacoma contracts were brought into court 
and outlawed as being contrary to public policy 
and in restraint of trade and because of their violation 
of them, and since our company was emancipated from 
the thraldom which was thereby placed upon it, it 
immediately began to grow and thrive as an inde- 
pendent, successful and prosperous concern. 

The brunt of everything in the West came upon 
me personally. Even Father was not fully aware of 
the acuteness of the situation at all times, for I saw 
no advantage in having him tormented as well as my- 
self. I did not wish to overtax his courage, for I knew 
that the call to surrender which frequently came from 
the enemy would be more apt to result in the white 
flag going up in Chicago than in Seattle. I never 
dreamed for an instant of lying down, for I saw as 
clear as crystal the clear sky ahead if we kept our 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 245 

wits and nerve together. The enemy regarded me as 
a rock, — hard to either move or shatter, or rather as 
a fool perhaps, too obtuse to yield, not knowing when 
I was beaten. It looked as though there was nothing 
to which our adversaries would not stoop to do, except 
such acts as being difficult to screen would lead its 
shining lights to the penitentiary. Later on our trans- 
mission wires were frequently cut, presumably in 
order to discredit our service while I was making 
important negotiations for power. The bombard- 
ment in the East was centered against Father and it 
was calculated to discourage him and if possible ruin 
him. Probably no one ever faced the blackguarding 
of the E. Company and M. & N. with more grim deter- 
mination and defiance than did he, and the worry that 
they gave him at times when he was not in his best 
health aroused my indignation to a degree which I 
have not forgotten. Father wrote : — 

Mar. t5h, 1903. "If we are beaten on these points, as I 
am afraid we are, what is there left for us? The outlook is 
so disheartening that it breaks me all up ; there appears to be 
no end to our troubles whatever we try to do, and I am 
thoroughly discouraged." 

Perhaps one of the greatest achievements in con- 
nection with this enterprise was the securing of the 
amendments to our Seattle Franchise, by which the 
strictures which had been originally grafted therein 
by our enemies for the purpose of making the fran- 
chise fatal were removed. When I started upon this 
task, it seemed as though it could hardly be accom- 
plished (and Father thought so) having as I did have, 



246 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

a corrupt council to work with, the majority of which 
were thieves. Several in this council who had not 
been known to have a dollar, blossomed out into large 
real estate owners as soon as the fight against us 
was well under way. However, I was able to arouse 
public sentiment on the question, and the Manufac- 
turers' Association of Seattle, of which I was made 
vice-president for the purpose, also took a hand in the 
fight. Later the fight culminated in the calling of a 
grand jury to investigate the corrupt practices in 
Seattle. Two-thirds of their time was taken up in 
the consideration of our franchise matter, and I my- 
self went before the grand jury and testified how the 
city council in two different years, through their 
agent, had come to me for the purpose of soliciting 
bribes of $1,000 and $15,000 respectively, promising to 
grant me any favor I would ask and also promising 
to betray those who had been in the habit of bribing 
them. Evidently there were few honest men in that 
council, for "honest men stay bought." As a result 
of the sitting of the grand jury, the leading council 
members practically had the choice of accepting situ- 
ations in the penitentiary or passing the amendments, 
so that naturally the amendments were carried, and 
since then we have enjoyed liberal franchises. It was 
generally understood at this time that there was a 
sliding scale of prices for aldermanic votes, which ran 
from $5.00 per head for small favors up to several 
thousand dollars per head for railway franchises, etc. 
I also testified before the grand jury of our experi- 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 247 

ence in another and smaller town where we sought a 
franchise, where some of the councilmen actually had 
the open arrogance to offer their votes to us for 
$1,000 each, stating that they could do $200 better 
than that in another direction, but would prefer mak- 
ing them to us cheaper for the reason that we were 
more popular with the public. They excused the 
capitalization of their votes upon the theory that coun- 
cilmanic votes brought high prices in Seattle, and they 
did not see why they should not take advantage of a 
good thing when it was coming their way, as well as 
their brothers did in Seattle. Had there been an 
honest prosecuting attorney on hand in Seattle and 
Tacoma, such as a Folk or a Heney, our prisons would 
have secured a richer harvest of recruits than St. 
Louis gave or than San Francisco expects to give. 

In their desperate zeal to destroy our property the 
M. & N. interests blindly followed in the wake of Mr. 
A., who led them to their Waterloo when in an unlucky 
hour he inspired them to undertake as a measure of 
spite against us, the development of a water power upon 
a small stream flowing from Mt. Rainier which they 
heralded to the world as the greatest achievement 
which hydro-electric science had yet attempted. The 
plan consisted of diverting a small mountain stream 
at the foot of a glacier on Mt. Rainier and carrying 
it through a tortuous wood flume following the 
devious course of a precipitous and uncertain moun- 
tain canyon, to a point where a small reservoir was 
dug out of the ground for temporary storage pur- 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

poses, from which the water in turn was supplied to 
the water wheels below. Much was said about this 
alleged engineering wonder before it was built, but 
there has been an oppressive silence on the subject 
ever since. Of course the coming of this dangerous 
new enemy was flaunted in my father's face, and he, 
therefore, asked me to report upon the same. This I 
did after careful examination, making the statement 
that the project would be most extravagant in con- 
struction, in operation and maintenance. I predicted 
that the flume would slide out in sections, that trees 
and rocks would fall upon it and put it out of com- 
mission, that the water would freeze up in winter and 
cease to flow on account of having its source so near 
the glaciers, that the glacial grit would cut out the 
water wheels and fill up the reservoir, that forest fires 
would endanger the structures, and that the plant 
would prove a most extravagant and uncertain play- 
thing. This report and its predictions, reads almost 
exactly like the history of the plant as it has since 
transpired, in addition to which its construction cost 
is almost twice the usual cost per H. P. If this project 
had to stand upon its own legs entirely and thus 
become deprived of the frequent assistance which the 
allied steam plants in Seattle and Tacoma have to give 
to it, it would cease doing business entirely and would 
probably be dismantled and sold for junk. So much 
for this boomerang which was devised for no other 
purpose than to bankrupt our Snoqualmie Company. 
I am glad to chronicle here that when great floods 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 249 

visit the Puget Sound countries, when forest fires rage, 
when drouth occurs, when the extreme cold of Winter 
freezes up many of the rivers at their source, and 
when, because of these things either some or all of the 
electric power plants in the Puget Sound country go 
out of commission, then always and invariably Sno- 
qualmie is doing business with colors flying; and in 
the true spirit of a public service corporation it lends 
its surplus power during such critical periods even to 
its adversaries, who being always crippled as soon as 
the shadows of these disasters approach are thus 
enabled to keep their service going, to some extent at 
least. 

Then came another bright idea likewise out of the 
head of Mr. A., and this was to organize a company 
on White River for the purpose of destroying or har- 
assing our White River power project by a well 
devised plan of bulldozing. This company bought a 
strip of land about three miles long on White River 
below the intake of our White River Power Company, 
subsequent to our having spent something like $100,- 
ooo upon its development. The purpose sought to 
be accomplished by this invasion was to place legal 
strictures in the way of our diverting the river above 
from their premises below, for they proclaimed that 
they, too, were going to build a power plant on White 
River about one-tenth the size of ours, although using 
the same amount of water. We were, therefore, com- 
pelled to go into court in an action of condemnation 
and we are still in court contesting for the rights 



250 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

which these pirates have attacked, while in the mean- 
time the Puget Sound communities are suffering and 
waiting anxiously for the power which this great 
storehouse of nature will eventually give them 
through the agency of our company. Had it not been 
for this unfortunate attack upon the public welfare 
and upon our plan in furtherance of it, White River 
today would be driving all the standard railroads west 
of the summit of the Cascade Mountains from Port- 
land to the British boundary, and the prosperity and 
population of the Puget Sound country would have 
been considerably increased on account of the impetus 
to industrial development which this new power 
would have given it. 

Of course, the underlying motive for the warfare 
upon our property was not entirely for the purpose 
of destroying it in the sense of complete obliteration, 
but to destroy its usefulness to us so that we would 
have no other resource left than to sell out for any 
price which might be offered. It was perhaps the most 
notable case of blackmail ever put up in the West. 
One of the features of the campaign against us was 
the injecting of offers of purchase now and then, 
which offers began early in our work at a price that 
would no more than let us out or even less, and then as 
time went on the price began to be more substantial as 
the element of profit to us was recognized and consid- 
ered in the offers. As we began to impress our oppon- 
ents more and more that we were there to stay and not 
to be bluffed or scared off, and that we proposed to 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 251 

defend our property to the end, the offers rose in 
amount until we could have retired with a most hand- 
some profit for the work which we had thus far put 
in upon it. These offers of course, were not made 
directly, but through other people from different 
directions, and all purporting to represent interests 
entirely unrelated to our opponents. There is no doubt 
but what some offers were really independent, but 
they were all declined upon the theory that we had 
planned out a certain line of work, wide in its scope 
and possibilities, and that the proper time to sell out 
was not at any way-station, but at the terminal after 
we should have reached it. These offers of course, 
almost invariably came to me as I was thought to be 
the entire owner of the enterprise, because of my being 
the active projector of it and I always referred them 
to Father, and he invariably coincided with my advice 
in rejecting them. In other words, I was a 
stumbling block, and upon the narrow reasoning that 
I would change my views if it were made to my per- 
sonal interest to do so, and without regard to Father's 
interest in the premises, I was offered at one time 
$25,000 in money for no other consideration than giv- 
ing my consent to selling out; together with a sub- 
stantial interest in the property with the new owners, 
and a contract to manage it as President of the com- 
pany at $15,000 a year salary. The nature of the 
offer however precluded me from considering it, and 
I felt moreover that we would do better to wait. This 
offer was $2,000,000 for our stock and this would 



252 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

have been about all profit to us. We were looking 
ahead to the time when we could as readily get $3,- 
000,000 if we would ever want to sell. This was the 
first and only time in my life that a price was bid for 
my honor. 

The warfare against our company did not cease 
by any means with the completion of the plant or the 
financing of our operations. They could, of course, 
pursue us no further in the thwarting of these accom- 
plishments, but they did follow us thereafter with the 
most industrious persecution in order to prevent us 
from getting any business, with the idea of making 
our concern an unprofitable one and therefore easier 
to buy, or else possibly driving it into bankruptcy 
and buying it from a Receiver. The hardest fight 
that they put up against us was in the matter of 
securing the contract for furnishing power to the city 
of Tacoma, which city in turn furnishes all the electric 
light consumed by its inhabitants. I was pursued to 
my wits end in securing this business, and did not 
finally succeed until we had been routed once or twice. 
The City Council was at that time generally corrupt, 
but there stood up for the people of that city an honest 
Mayor, the Honorable Louis D. Campbell, than whom 
Tacoma nor any other city has ever possessed any 
braver, more scrupulous, conscientious nor more 
honest a mayor. I finally succeeded in securing this 
business by a little ruse, as a result of which Mr. A., 
our opponent, fell into the trap which I had prepared 
for him. 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 



253 



The bids for the city lighting as advertised for, 
called for a deposit of a certified check equal in amount 
to five per cent of the total cost of power to be 

CHARLES H. BAKER'S 

GRAND HYPNOTIC EXHIBITION AT CITY HALL 




Tacoma Ledger cartoon, representing President C. H. Baker's supposed 

hypnotic power over Mayor Campbell and other city officials 

of Tacoma, during the power contract light. The 

mayor occupies the center of the stage. 

furnished for the five year term of the contract, based 
upon an arbitrary estimate furnished by the Com- 
missioner of Public Works, and at the rate bid. I 



254 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

therefore secured our certified check at a bank in 
which one of A/s lieutenants was a director, knowing 
that in this way the information as to the size of our 
check, and consequently our bid, would get around 
to A. ; but this is where A.'s unusual credulity caused 
him to fall down, for I had our check made for a sum 
indicating a larger bid than the one we actually sub- 
mitted. The result was that A. bid just under what 
our bid would have been as purported by the check, 
and just over what our real bid was, so we secured 
that business for the next five years, by the narrow 
margin of a fraction of a cent per kilowatt hour. 
Chagrined at this defeat, A. was then determined to 
secure for his company a smaller contract for power 
for driving some of the city's pumping machinery. 
I put up a very strong talk indicating our desperate 
desire to get this business also, and we made our 
talk in such a way as to proclaim a very low bid as 
likely to come from us, which reached A. through 
an apparent breach of confidence on the part of some 
of our friends whom I had instructed to breach. In 
this way he put in an absurdly low bid which meant 
a considerable loss to his company, being about one- 
third of the bid which we submitted without any idea 
of being successful. A.'s company is still lugging 
along the business at that unprofitable figure, while 
we are still carrying ours at a good profit, and with 
credit to our Company. Mayor Campbell in an 
autograph letter to me written during the first 
year of our service, said: "You are furnishing 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 255 

Tacoma with the best pozver the city has ever had." 
There were other good contracts which we secured, 
although with much trouble, on account of the oppo- 
sition setting pole lines to conflict with our own, as 
strategetical measures. They also sought to raise a 
hue and cry in the city government against our high 
voltage, and in that way to secure legislation against 
our running lines to connect with certain desirable 
customers. This, however, did not work very well as 
it was conceded that our high voltage was no more 
dangerous than their high voltage, although one was 
produced by water and the other by steam. 

In looking back over our troubled career, the fact 
is notable that we have always been victorious in our 
brushes with the enemy and our Snoqualmie Company 
still lives, while the thousands of dollars which have 
been spent to annihilate us has resulted more to their 
undoing than our own. It is a comforting thought 
also to reflect that we have not spent one cent in cor- 
ruption. Can our opponents truthfully say this much 
or this little of themselves — allowing even a margin 
of $100,000? 

IV. 
Two weeks before Father's death a disastrous fire 
at the Snoqualmie Falls works destroyed the entire 
transforming plant, and put the plant entirely out of 
business for thirty-six hours, and partially so for 
three weeks. Our enemy refused to sell us any of their 
surplus power during this period, but they circulated 
among our customers instead and tried to contract our 



256 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

business away from us under long term contracts. 
Citizens of Tacoma had to burn candles and oil lamps 
unless connected to gas mains, but they did this glee- 
fully rather than desert us in our extremity. This 
was doubtless an incendiary fire, and there has been 
considerable ground to believe that the fire was 
inspired by the enemies who have sought in one way 
or another to discredit and destroy our enterprise 
from its inception. This incident weighed very 
heavily upon my father's mind, and gave him distress 
of mind in his last days. 

The shining lights in this enterprise have died in 
harness. Among them is numbered Col. Lyon, the 
able and efficient first Secretary and Treasurer ; Paul 
Hoffman, an illustrious foreman of construction who 
was electrocuted; Knight, a college trained superin- 
tendent, who lost both hands by electrical contact in 
heroically attempting to save Hoffman; a station 
attendant who was killed, and a lineman who was 
killed, all of which casualties occurred after the plant 
was completed and without any apparent reason there- 
for, and through the individual carelessness of the 
victims. The writer escaped by a second the fate of 
Hoffman and Knight in going to their assistance. 
Then just before the final completion of our project, 
on October 6, 1903, came Father's death in the midst 
of a peaceful sleep without any previous illness, and 
then a period of over a year of doubt and anxiety, 
and then I, the father of the enterprise, its inventor 
and the one who inch by inch, in the face of such 






POWER DEVELOPMENTS 257 

formidable opposition had brought it to the zenith of 
its financial and mechanical success, after I had suc- 
cessfully negotiated with N. W. Harris & Company 
for the sale of our bonds for refunding our indebted- 
ness, was driven from it with no reason ever having 
been given, but apparently as a result of the oppor- 
tunity given by Father's death for the display of 
resentment coming from those who were jealous of 
my success, and for the manipulation of the company 
by speculators which our "financing" had let in upon 
us. Father in his lifetime had warned me against the 
Harris firm as one not to be trusted, but I thought I 
knew better and so paid dearly for my disregard of his 
advice and putting myself in their power. Father's 
letters contain the following references to them : — 

Dec. 14, 1897. "It is my belief and has been all the time, 
that it is a tricky hypocritical outfit, " 

Jan. 13, 1898. "I always have the feeling that whatever 
they tell me in that office is a lie." 

My going from the company as I did was the signal 
for a spontaneous expression of affection from every 
one in its employ which crystalized in the gift to me of 
a superb three-stone diamond ring, accompanied by a 
testimonial of esteem engraved on a plate of silver, 
containing as well the names of the forty-five donors. 

Of course these trials and discouragements drew 
Father and myself into closer relation and more 
mutual sympathy than would otherwise have been 
the case. We exchanged letters almost daily for five 
years, and if there wasn't anything to write about 



258 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

we would write just to state the fact. He was ever 
solicitous of me least my health break down under the 
strain, as it did two or three times, and notably so 
when I had appendicitis and had to be operated upon. 
In a letter of October 10, 1899, he wrote to me: — 

"I do not want you to take any risks for the sake of the 
work. Let that take care of itself ; your health is the first and 
only consideration." 

We not only in our letters dwelt upon the progress of 
the work and of how to keep the enemy from downing 
us, but he gave me all his confidences, on all subjects, 
even the most personal and private. He came to me 
alone, as he did to no one else in the world. On April 
6, 1903, just six months before his death he wrote: — 

"There is actually no one else in the world I can talk to 
confidentially since Mamma got too ill to comprehend." 

The greatest ambition I had in connection with 
the conception and upbuilding of this project was as 
already stated, to be the means thereby of delivering 
my father from the uncertainties of business life upon 
the Board of Trade in Chicago. I looked forward to 
the time when our work would be finished and when 
we could each draw dividends so that we might retire 
to a comfortable and happy life, free from daily wor- 
ries and perplexities, and when I at the same time 
would be in a situation where I would be independent 
in the matter of income, and where I would preside 
over a business which would be profitable and con- 
genial and which I could expand during my remaining 
days as a business compatible with my ability, taste 
and experience. Father died six months too soon to 






POWER DEVELOPMENTS 259 

realize this dream. We were in the midst of putting 
our principal and subsidiary companies together and 
financing their consolidation when this deplorable 
event occurred. The plant had already proved a pro- 
nounced mechanical success, the earnings had ex- 
ceeded my promises, and all that remained was to com- 
plete the refunding, when he would have his money out 
with interest, and our stock would be clear. It was a 
question of only a couple of months when this would be 
done and we would have income securities worth two 
million dollars to divide equally between us as the net 
profit from the enterprise. The refunding would have 
been accomplished nearly a year previous and our ex- 
pectations then realized except that the bedevilling of 
us on White River by our opponents compelled a radi- 
cal change in our financial plans and the institution of 
legal proceedings against them, which consumed much 
time. However I was glad to realize that Father saw 
that we had achieved success, and if he could only have 
stayed to enjoy it, I would willingly give him my place 
here to do so. 

Then came the aftermath. Then happened things 
only made possible by his death, and for this reason 
they must be added to his story. Then again came the 
opportunity to our enemies to whom the gates were" 
opened to come at me alone upon whom my father's 
mantle had fallen, and then followed a record of per- 
fidy, and misconduct which would more than fill this 
book if all were to be told. It would be told how our 
ancient enemy C. showed his head again almost before 



260 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

my father's grave was covered, how he came into the 
councils of the estate and of the Company as 
mischief maker, and in collusion with A. and 
the administrators tried again to surrender our 
Company to the opposition. It would be told how 
I negotiated a contract with N. W. Harris & Com- 
pany to finance the Company, although Father 
in his lifetime had warned me against them as unre- 
liable, but I thought differently until I got wiser by 
later experience; how they sent two engineer experts 
and two accounting experts to investigate the prop- 
erty; how they all reported of it in highest terms; 
how we then depended upon Harris & Company to 
fulfill their contract and in that faith went on with 
our construction operations ; how in the eleventh hour 
they repudiated their contract for no reason given; 
how as a part of this contract Mr. Latimer, of Seattle, 
Harris' correspondent (he only would do for this pur- 
pose) had secured an option to buy a third of the 
Company for the low price of $350,000 for the purpose 
of syndicating it locally and how he in concert with 
Harris threw down his end of the business ; how panic 
then reigned in our affairs until we had sweat suf- 
ficiently, and then Latimer re-agreed upon the syndi- 
cate matter at $265,000 or a saving to him of $85,000; 
how to this syndicate all persons interested in the Com- 
pany were invited to subscribe, myself included, which 
I did to the extent of $25,000 and as the first one to 
do so; how when the list was full, I was told that 
there was no stock left for me as Harris would not 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 261 

consent to my taking any as he did not want me in 
the Company, although the syndicate idea was my own 
and one half the syndicate subscription I secured my- 
self, and nearly all who went in did so because of my 
connection with the Company ; how among other sub- 
scribers I secured the Westinghouse Company for 
$50,000, which company had always been our staunch 
friend, and how after they had paid their subscription 
to Latimer, he allotted to them $66,600 of preferred 
stock and $66,800 of common stock, while to Harris 
who had also subscribed $50,000 he allotted $78,500 
of preferred stock and $141,300 of common stock, — 
although both were invited in on the same "ground 
floor/' — thus doing the Westinghouse Company out 
of $11,900 preferred and $74,500 common; how 
Harris & Company finally made a loan for one year 
to the estate of $475,000 by arrangement with the 
Administrators, as a substitute for the bond contract 
which they had repudiated, with the entire estate as 
collateral to it, and a present or bonus of one-seventh 
of the Company, or $525,000 of the stock as a "com- 
mission" was exacted, although other bankers in New 
York and elsewhere were ready and willing to do the 
business without any presents, and previous issues 
of our bonds had been sold without sweetening and at 
a higher price, and at a time before the Company had 
developed any earning power ; how shortly before the 
year expired, Harris & Company finally bought the 
bonds at the original price agreed upon, after com- 
pelling the estate to cancel and lose to it $165,000 



LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

securities in the Company ; how as a part of the deal I 
was euchred out of the use of my securities, and of 
all my honors and positions in the Company, which 
were President, Manager, Director, and Chief Engi- 
neer, — and that without my knowledge until a sub- 
ordinate in Seattle unmasked the administrators, 
Harris & Latimer and told me of it; how as 
a sugar coated pill I was at first asked to give up 
the Presidency only, in favor of Latimer who 
desired the distinction and salary, and to retain 
my other responsibilities and salary, and to be 
the Vice-President because they said I was the only 
one who knew about the business and therefore should 
be kept at the helm ; how this pill was next changed for 
one cutting out the Vice-Presidency, and then for 
other pills denying me all things else successively 
including salary, thus casting me out empty handed 
to hunt for a new prospect, while others were enabled 
to enjoy the fruits of my success and the company 
became a training school for beginners; how Harris 
& Company compelled a five year pool of the estate 
stock including mine in favor of themselves and Lati- 
mer as a rider to the revised bond deal; how under 
this pool the Company was more numerously officered 
than before, with favored friends and relatives at 
fat salaries, who by their arrogance and incompe- 
tency immediately drove many of the Company's 
largest customers away from it, and who by their 
inability to comprehend the true scope of the enter- 
prise as I had conceived it, have permitted the oppo- 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 263 

sition to reach out in every direction and strengthen 
their position while they have been asleep and per- 
mitted the company to lose ground and become fenced 
in and thus depreciated in value ; how under this pool 
the Company was compelled to buy an ice factory and 
a diminutive steam heat and light plant for $380,000 
upon which Latimer's bank had a mortgage of about 
$100,000 which but for this bit of "frenzied finance," 
would have remained much longer overdue and un- 
paid than it was; how as a feature of this ice factory 
job when it had been fixed up to load it on the Com- 
pany, Latimer and some of his Directors made up a 
little pool among themselves and got an option on the 
property, "to save it from being secured by the oppo- 
sition" which had previously turned it down at less 
than half the price, and then turned it into the Com- 
pany at a profit of many thousand dollars to them- 
selves, and voted my stock for this nefarious purpose ; 
how when I raised my voice and filed a written protest 
against this swindle, Harris promptly threatened to 
repudiate his second bond contract and confiscate the 
whole estate under the note they held unless I con- 
sented; how I have since brought these gentlemen 
into court to compell an accounting to the stockholders, 
which suit is still pending and has already prompted 
one of the offenders to disgorge his share of the 
plunder without waiting for the trial ; how also as an 
afterthought the estate was compelled to loan the 
Company $100,000 for working capital or take the 
consequences of refusing my being closed out; how 



264 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

over $42,000 fees were charged against the estate 
during the first year by C. and numerous other law- 
yers and friends constituting the extensive "Legal 
Cabinet" of the administrators when $3,000 would 
have been sufficient, as their services were simple 
and involved no litigation and were generally un- 
necessary and other fees are still piling up uncurbed 
with no one to oppose them except myself; how the 
administrators are endeavoring to get something like 
$35,000 fees for "services" which the attorneys drew 
pay for, thus ranking the administrators with leading 
bank and railroad presidents, although their principal 
effort was trying to manage a business which so far 
I have received only $400 for creating and establish- 
ing ; how the new management, inheriting the profitable 
business and ten thousand horse power increased plant 
capacity which I had established, has never until last 
winter paid a dividend, — not because an ample sur- 
plus was not earned, but apparently because Latimer 
& Harris were "long" on common stock which would 
thus be benefited at the expense of the preferred, and 
for the purpose of shaking out the outside stockholders 
and buying in the shares which they have been 
patiently holding under the promise of dividends 
which always proved to be wil o'-the-wisps, and in 
the knowledge that the dividends were being much 
more than earned; and how, after being banished 
from my kingdom and humiliated to the last degree, 
it was proclaimed by those who claimed my property 
that "I did not do it, that it was Father's idea and 



POWER DEVELOPMENTS 265 

that he hired me to carry it out, that he hired me 
because I could be had cheap, and in fact would work 
for nothing," that the "fame" I had achieved by my 
success was ample return for me, that my personal 
endorsement of the company's notes for thousands of 
dollars meant nothing, that the $15,000 I had invested 
in the project gave me no interest in it, as that was 
one of the attributes of a free job, and that the only 
interest I could expect in this property which I had 
created and which had paid back all the money Father 
had in it, would be my share as one of the numerous 
heirs of my father, for no one as yet has contended 
that I am not his son and heir, although serious con- 
sideration was given to the idea of challenging my 
right to even inherit, because of the alleged miscon- 
duct on my part in having created this property and 
then claiming my half of it, instead of giving it grace- 
fully to others who had contributed nothing to it, 
knew nothing about it, and in some cases had not even 
seen it. These things happened because I claimed 
what was mine already. 

But there is a limit and an end to all things and 
Justice is not for all time blind. Our work is done, 
at least as far as we can do it together. It was well 
done. It has not been anywhere excelled. It speaks 
for itself in mockery of our defamers, while they have 
been silenced and our enemies have been routed. His- 
tory cannot be unmade by any manner of perversion 
or crushing to earth of truth, although the dead can- 
not come back to proclaim the truth as the avenger of 



266 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

the wrong. Snoqualmie still stands an accomplished 
fact, and perhaps in more or less changed form as 
future science may suggest, it will still stand for cen- 
turies; and for centuries to come it will still have the 
same duty to perform, and perform it equally faith- 
fully. The same rock chamber will be there — 
although larger, and will contain generation after 
generation of new water wheels and generators, each 
better and more extensive than their predecessors, 
with the same never ceasing din of industry still con- 
verting the waste energy of Nature to the uses of 
mankind ; and White River likewise, in the companion- 
ship of Snoqualmie, will serve the same ends equally 
well for probably all time to come. This is a project 
that would before this have been annihilated by the 
manipulation and jobbing it has run the gauntlet of 
since my father and I went out of it, had it not been 
for its unusual merit and the ingredient honesty which 
we incorporated in it. It is a situation from which 
history will not divorce us. Even as I close this 
chapter a letter has come from a gentleman in Seattle 
who voices that community as he writes : 

"I am pleased to know that your prospects in your new 
enterprises are good, but I would much rather see you make 
your fortune out of Snoqualmie and White River. Time has 
proven this much, that whenever Snoqualmie Falls is men- 
tioned, your name is found linked with it and mentioned in 
the same breath. Business men here who honestly differed 
with you now acknowledge that you paved the way towards 
furnishing the power that has built up the factories of this 
and other nearby cities." 



T 



Chapter IX 

ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO 

1878-1903 

HE different sides of Father's nature found 
natural expression in the different things with 
which he chose to be identified. The Board of 
Trade reflected his commercial instinct. The Civic 
Federation and the World's Fair reflected his courage, 
his great business and executive ability, and his fight- 
ing qualities. The Art Institute reflected a different 
temperament, of gentler and loftier attributes with 
which he was endowed. 

This Art Institute stands today among the three 
or four great museums of the country. It is remark- 
able that it had its first beginning as early as 1866 and 
earlier than any other similar institution anywhere 
else in the country except New York and Philadelphia. 
The nucleus of the present organization was known 
as the Chicago Academy of Design, which was merely 
an association of artists which continued in more or 
less active form until 1882. It did not amount to 
much, but such as it was it was the only art centre 
of importance in the city. 

In 1878 it was attempted to improve the condition 
of the organization by introducing a board of trus- 
tees composed of business men, but this met with many 



268 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

difficulties and resulted in the formation of a new 
organization which was called The Chicago Academy 
of Fine Arts. My father's connection with this school 
of art began May, 1878. It then had rooms in Pike's 
Building at the southwest corner of State and Monroe 
Streets. The school roll at the time had less than 
twenty pupils, and as income was almost entirely lack- 
ing, the rent had to be paid by certain gentlemen who 
had guaranteed it, and who rather unwillingly had 
to make good their guarantees. When it was decided 
to introduce a board of trustees of business men, my 
father was chosen one of the board, which position he 
accepted, and thereafter became one of the most 
active and useful members. Among the trustees in 
addition to himself were D. W. Irwin, N. K. Fair- 
bank, J. H. Dole, Murray Nelson, and Charles L. 
Hutchinson, and it is a notable fact that the Board of 
Trade was the chief strength of this society at that 
time, with hardly any representation among profes- 
sional men. 

The newly organized Academy selected Mr. Dole 
for President and my father for Vice-President. 
They personally contributed money to put the rooms 
in order, and the school took on renewed life, 
and gave exhibitions occasionally during the year. 
The total number of pupils for the year was about 
300. Then it was found that the Academy was encum- 
bered by debts that were unknown to the trustees, 
and this resulted in unfriendly feeling between them 
and the artists. As a result of this mv father and 



ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO 269 

others of the trustees who were acting solely for the 
public good and out of no particular liking for the old 
Academy of Design, grew weary of the contentions 
and resigned in a body in the spring of 1879. Father's 
argument was that "there was no need of paying for 
dead horses. " Then through him and Mr. Murray 
Nelson began the movement for the new institution. 
The property of the old Academy of Design was taken 
by its creditors, but was later on redeemed by the 
Art Institute which was organized later. My father 
and a few of his associates issued a call for a meeting 
at the Palmer House for the purpose of organizing 
the new Art Institute. As a result of this and the 
many meetings which followed in which he was most 
active, the Art Institute of Chicago was organized and 
a charter procured therefor on March 24, 1879 an d 
and in this organization Father became one of the 
original trustees and so continued until his death. 

During the whole period of more than twenty-five 
years he was a member of the executive committee and 
took an active part in every important movement of 
the institution. Although a very active worker for 
this organization, of which he early became very fond, 
he nevertheless did not allow his name to appear to 
any extent. Mr. George Armour was the first Presi- 
dent of the Art Institute and Mr. L. Z. Leiter the 
second. Great progress, however was not effected 
until the election of Mr. Hutchinson to the Presi- 
dency in 1882, although the school was maintained 
creditably and some exhibitions were held. During 



270 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

these years my father contributed a great deal of 
money and time to the institution, and was a faithful 
friend to it at all times when it had need of friends. 
He was consistent and firm in his attitude at the 
meetings, as he was at the meetings of the other 
organizations to which he belonged, and as usual he 
continually rebuked those who came late and caused 
him to lose time in consequence. For many years he 
was the auditor of the Art Institute. 

From the early beginning in rented quarters, the 
Institute in 1885 acquired and moved to the corner 
of Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street and built 
thereon a handsome brownstone building, which it 
occupied for a number of years, and afterwards sold 
it to the Chicago Club at a considerable profit for 
$425,000. It soon outgrew these quarters, however, 
which at first were thought to be more than ample, 
as the result of which an arrangement was effected 
with the World's Columbian Exposition to contribute 
$200,000 towards the erection of a palatial building 
upon the lake front at the foot of Adams Street, the 
use of which the exposition had during the Fair. To 
this contribution was added the proceeds from the 
sale of its former quarters, which completed the pay- 
ment for the new building that the Institute is now 
occupying. This building has been added to from 
time to time through different endowments, and at 
the same time the institution has grown into having 
national fame and importance, and is probably the 
largest fine art school in the United States. As a 



ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO 271 

result of its progressiveness and establishing itself 
in such well designed and permanent quarters, it has 
become the recipient of many valuable bequests of 
pictures, statuary and other works, all representing 
the fine arts. 

The annual report of the Institute for 1904 con- 
tains this paragraph in reference to my father: — 

"The Art Institute has been fortunate in having closely 
connected with its management, a man who in many respects 
represented the best type of Chicago citizenship, public spirited 
without ostentation, of fearless integrity, sagacious in business, 
and simple and unaffected in private intercourse." 

As a testimonial to my father's love of art and his 
devotion to this institution, we, his children, have 
given to the Art Institute one of Van Dyck's best 
paintings entitled "Portrait of Helena, wife of Hen- 
drick Du Bois," a painting that is about 300 years 
old. It was little enough to do for him, for undoubt- 
edly had he lived, he would have done manyfold more 
for the Institute in a material way than our slight tri- 
bute amounted to. I am proud of the fact that my 
father constituted one of the small group of men who 
did the real work of forming and carrying on the 
great Art Institute. 




Glimpses of My Father in the Summer Time at Exmoor, 
highland park. ills. 



Chapter X. 
HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER. 

"Formed on the good old plan, 
A true and brave and downright honest man ; 
He blew no trumpet in the market place, 
Xor in the church with hypocritical face 
Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; 
Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will 
What others talked of, while their hands were still." 

— Whither. 

A STRANGER to my father who might read the 
preceding narrative would be able to write this 
chapter and give a correct analysis of his 
character, but few strangers ever saw him as we 
knew him in his home. Never has fiction nor poetry 
conjured up and painted a sublimer picture than 
Father's tender love and solicitude for his invalid 
wife, — my step-mother, as it was enacted in his daily 
life at home during his last years. From a most beau- 
tiful and gifted woman, such as she was when he 
took her for his wife, she became transformed through 
a period of years by the curse of her affliction, until 
she was but a living body from which the mind had 
fled, and which had moulded itself into but a mockery 
of what her former self had been. She was dead to 
herself and to most of the world, but not so to him, — 
she was his sweetheart still. The last ten vears of her 



274 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

life found her in this dreadful plight. He was dur- 
ing this period more gallant, thoughtful, and atten- 
tive to her than the young lover of twenty-one would 
be to his fiance. From downtown he would telephone 
the house once or twice each day to "see how mamma 
is." He gave up the pleasures that men usually 
have in order to be at her side. He never took a 
needed outing nor a hunting trip such as he used to 
be so fond of, because it meant a night or more away 
from her. If the extreme necessities of business com- 
pelled him to be away, as happened only infrequently, 
he telegraphed from his heart to her, morning, noon 
and night, and if the replies edited by his daughter 
did not come exactly at the hour and minute he had 
calculated for their reception, he would begin to stew 
and fret and chafe until he became quite beside him- 
self with misgivings and worry. And then when the 
telegram would finally come, he would read it and 
re-read it and be himself again, unless he would won- 
der if between the lines it forbode more than its face 
implied, and then he would stew and fret again. He 
believed himself to be entirely indispensable to her, for 
he thought no one understood her as he did, and no 
one could do for her as he could, notwithstanding that 
she had the best of care and attention night and day 
from my sister Bertha and from regularly retained 
trained nurses. He worried his strength and nerves 
away without its helping her. He wrote me three 
years before he died, — "Mamma is growing weaker 
day by day, and I hardly think we will have her with 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 275 

us Christmas." And yet she lived six years after 
that, and three years after he was gone, during which 
time she did not know that he was dead nor did she 
miss him. Was there anything more beautifully piti- 
ful? In the almost daily letters I had from Father 
during the last several years of his life he never failed 
to close without a thoughtful reference to her, to the 
effect that "Mamma is some better today," "Mamma 
seems more cheerful than yesterday," or "Mamma had 
a sinking spell this morning which has made me very 
blue all day." 

Although with him the sun rose and set upon the 
shrine where he worshipped, — his wife, yet he was 
a father too, and this fact he did not overlook nor did 
we fail to appreciate it. But he was nevertheless a 
puzzle to his children. He was demonstrative towards 
his wife in his affection for her, but not so towards 
them, not even to his daughter. But we could read the 
very soul of him and see that love was there in full 
measure. He never told it by word of mouth, never 
in his life, but he showed it in look, in actions, and 
particularly in what he said to other people. It was 
a noticeable peculiarity of his that he seldom com- 
mended anyone either in or out of the family to their 
face, but to others he would speak of them in proud 
terms of unstinted praise and affection. This I could 
never understand, for a well deserved compliment 
from him now and then would have added an inch 
to the growth of any of us. As children we seldom 
confided our troubles and secrets to him and he 



276 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

did not seem to care for our confidences, but this all 
changed when we grew up and grew older and found 
in him our best friend and chum. There was in him 
a kind of selfishness, or better perhaps should it be 
called thoughtlessness. I do not think for instance 
that it ever occurred to him that his young daughter 
did not have the same freedom and enjoyment that 
other girls did, and that she was giving up all this for 
his sick wife, — which was for him. Towards the end 
however, he softened up and fully realized what his 
daughter had been to him, and then he began to show 
his appreciation of it. As he grew older he became 
a most charming companion for anyone, man, woman 
or child. He liked to talk, small talk and big talk, 
reminisce and argue in a most agreeable fashion, and 
tell stories. And yet it can be remembered in his 
early prime how quick tempered he was, how like a 
tempest he was if things went wrong or displeased him, 
and how unforgiving he was with stupidity. He could 
not understand why anyone could be born stupid or 
grow that way afterwards, and to him it was quite 
unpardonable. But in that period of his life he was 
engaged in a strenuous business of great excitement 
and uncertainties, so it is not to be wondered at if his 
nerves got on edge and his disposition spoiled a little, 
making him at times disagreeable and hard to get 
along with. It seemed as if his whole mind and ner- 
vous system were reflected in his face, in which happi- 
ness, worry, unrest, contempt, discouragement or 
determination were all in turn depicted according to 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 277 

his mood. His face was an accurate thermometer 
of the wheat market, and his family grew to under- 
stand him so well that when he came home at night, 
they could almost tell the price of wheat within half 
a cent by a glance at his face. 

His life spelled out honor and truth. He was so 
inherently honest and true by the grace of God that he 
could not even think dishonestly, much less be so. 
Upon this trait my pen most surely cannot over reach 
itself for he was the exemplar of these virtues. There 
was not the slightest taint of anything to the con- 
trary in his nature from his boyhood to his grave. 
I remember when I was in College and was manager 
of the Alpha Delta Phi chapter house there where 
about twenty of the boys lived together. I was cus- 
todian of the funds. It happened that our remittance 
from home one month had not arrived with the cus- 
tomary promptness, so that our board and tuition were 
overdue. I therefore wrote Father a jacking up letter 
telling him that because of his being so slow I had bor- 
rowed from the chapter funds to pay our bills, and so 
he had better hurry and remit so that I could pay 
back. And he did hurry, and with the remittance 
came such a letter! It was not only like a ton of 
bricks, but a fatherly letter as well, telling how such 
innocent borrowing of trust funds was almost always 
the underlying cause of great defalcations and crimes 
committed without original criminal intent. I saw it 
as I had not seen before, and I saw it so well that 
thereafter I would not let my postage stamps or my 



278 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

personal pennies get physically mixed with those of 
the chapter house. 

And again, I recall when we were in the midst of 
our franchise fights in Seattle, when we were in the 
position of having spent already over $100,000 as a 
display of our good faith in building the works, — how 
at this point we were threatened with the prospect of 
not being able to get any franchises at all, — which 
would have made valueless our investment, — how then 
the road to glory was pointed out to me and would 
be open to me if I would but bribe certain of the coun- 
cilmen as related in a previous chapter, and how when 
asked for my reply to the proposal to that end I told 
their agent to say for me, — "Tell the gentlemen to go 
to hell." This occurrence I reported to Father and 
asked his views upon it. He answered, "You did 
right; I would rather see you demolish the plant and 
throw it into the river and count it entirely lost to us 
than to do a thing so dishonorable." And then he 
added a story of his own experience with an invest- 
ment in St. Louis street car stock. He told how in 
accordance with his usual care he scrutinized the 
reports of the street railway company there, how he 
saw where large sums had been paid out for "attor- 
neys' fees" when there had been no litigation nor legal 
services rendered, how contemporaneously with these 
unprecedently large and mysterious disbursements 
the Company had reecived extraordinary municipal 
favors, how they could give him no satisfactory expla- 
nation in answer to his demand, and how in his arith- 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 279 

metic two and two made four, and it smelled bad 
to him. So he then gave notice to his associates that 
he believed there was fraud somewhere, that he did 
not feel at home in their company in consequence, and 
that he would sell out and get out. And this he did, 
and was thus the first to scent the great scandal which 
later on sent a number of "respectable" citizens of St. 
Louis to the penitentiary at the time when Mr. Folk 
was prosecuting Attorney. 

In the ups and downs of business, my father was a 
wealthy man in fluctuating degrees. He had no ambi- 
tion to be a modern Croesus or the product of latter 
day "frenzied finance," but only to have enough to 
insure the comforts and pleasures of life compatible 
with his tastes and position, and to enable him to do 
something for those who were to follow him, and also 
for his fellow men, to whom he felt that everyone owed 
an individual duty measured according to his 
ability. He often said to me when we would 
discuss the fabulous tainted fortunes of the pres- 
ent day, "I would rather keep a good name to leave to 
you children than to pile up a big fortune by ques- 
tionable methods." He felt that when a man had more 
than enough it was bad for him and injurious to 
society, and he felt that the real sturdy manhood of 
each generation was best developed by making its 
own way rather than by being lifted and coddled along 
by heritages from the one preceding. 

Father was not cut out for a politician. He could 
not trim himself to suit the varying winds. He could 



280 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

not go astraddle of any issue; he was either on one 
side or the other, and with all the positiveness of clear 
conviction and sustaining courage. His percep- 
tive faculties were clear and sound, and with an 
honest nature behind him his views were radical and 
advanced. He was tenacious and combative in argu- 
ment. He believed in fair play and the rule of the 
majority, accepting defeat gracefully when it came to 
him. He was reasonable and open to conviction, but 
unless convinced, the whole world might hold to one 
opinion, and it would not alter his, although willing 
to accept the law "if all the world is wrong, then all 
the world is right." He used to be impolitic and un- 
suave in a way that worked to his disadvantage. He 
was curt to reporters and frequently turned them away 
abusively so that he was often depicted in the public 
press not as fairly as he should have been, and he was 
not "written up" in the frequent and complimentary 
style that those who courted reporters were wont to 
be favored. If he despised a man or his methods he 
would publicly snub him without hesitation. I have 
seen him politely greeted by one of our adversaries 
in the power fight, upon whom he turned his back so 
completely and abruptly as though he never existed. 
The bluntness which often characterizes an honest 
man is well illustrated in his case by an incident occur- 
ring at the official celebration of the track-raising of 
the Illinois Central Railroad. A party of prominent 
citizens, including the Mayor, members of the city 
council, certain business men and world's fair direc- 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 281 

tors went out on the railroad to the scene of the for- 
malities. As President of the World's Fair, Father 
was called upon for a speech, in the course of which 
he referred to the final success of the track-raising 
movement of which he had been such a constant advo- 
cate, and remarked in this connection that "the 
improvement would have been brought about years 
before had it not been for the corruption in the city 
council." At the close of the exercises the Mayor 
spoke to him and protested against his allusions, which 
he stated had hurt the feelings of the honorable mem- 
bers of the city council; to which Father made the 
curt reply, "No one was hurt zvho zvas not hit!' 

If he did not like a man or disapproved of his 
methods he had no use for him, and that man could 
read it in his face and manner as well as hear it from 
his lips. Then too he lacked at times discretion in 
dealing with men in business matters. As illustrating 
this, it may be mentioned how as bank director he dis- 
covered one day that the collateral of a certain large 
borrower in apparently good standing was spurious ; 
how he insisted that the note be at once called although 
only within about ten days of maturity; how the Presi- 
dent of the bank stood of! his persistency until the 
note was due, not sleeping nights the while, and then 
at maturity politely declined to renew for the reason 
that other customers needed and were entitled to the 
accommodation, and suggesting that the loan be made 
elsewhere; and how the debtor actually did borrow 
from another bank in order to pay the first one, — but 



282 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

the other bank was never paid its money again. Then 
too there was a measure of carelessness about Father 
and the taking of long chances which displayed a lack 
of conservatism and a disregard for the uncontrollable 
future. No better evidence of this can be found than 
the fact that he left no will. Why this precaution was 
overlooked and one-third of the inheritance to his chil- 
dren placed in jeopardy of filtering out to a horde of 
unknown and impecunious relatives of our step- 
mother, — his heir, can only be conjectured, but 
it may perhaps be charged to the natural optimism 
which characterized his life, for he was well and vig- 
orous and had no thought of dying, and probably in- 
tended to distribute his estate during his lifetime. He 
was indeed an optimist and believed in the world 
growing better, with the millenium ahead and rapidly 
getting nearer all the time. It is that quality in a 
life which helps to move the world onward, acting 
as an antidote to the ultra cautious and narrow man 
who will ever hold it back. His optimism attached 
even to wheat on which he was always a "bull," for he 
believed that high prices meant more money to the 
farmers and therefore more prosperity for the whole 
country, and so he believed in high prices. 

He was a scholar both by nature and by his own 
making. Although all his schooling could be boiled 
down into one solid year, yet he learned afterwards 
from books and by observation as few men do. Being 
deep himself, he read deep books and no one could 
be with him an hour and not learn something. He 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 283 

understood finance, social and political science, and 
international trade, to a degree which would rank him 
among the Statesmen of our time, and he frequently 
spoke and wrote upon these subjects. He understood 
the French language, and learned it as late as when 
I was a grown boy, and I remember his learning his 
lessons at home at night even as I did mine, or tried 
to do. He was familiar with mechanics and the 
natural sciences. 

My father had a sacred regard for his credit, which 
he held more dearly than his life, and he maintained 
it always at the highest level. No man in Chicago 
had a higher personal credit than he. He believed 
more in credit founded upon personal character than 
upon accumulation. As a bank director he would rather 
loan $50,000 to a man not worth $25,000 but whose 
character was high class, than to loan $25,000 to a 
man worth $50,000 whose integrity was questionable, 
for he felt that the element of honor vouchsafed 
greater security to the paper of the one, than did the 
collateral which was wholly material, to that of the 
other. He was one of the really great business men 
that Chicago has produced, and his influence and 
reputation as such, founded upon rigid honesty, ability 
and good judgment, has extended to all the great 
grain growing districts of the West, and the com- 
mercial marts of this country and of England. 

My father was a man of most tremendous energy, 
backed by a nerve and will of iron against which noth- 
ing could prevail. Then coupled with this was a great 



284 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

mentality and an ambition which never grew less while 
he lived, together with a cool head, and self possession, 
poise and level headedness. No wonder that such a 
combination of endowments made him the largest 
grain merchant in the world. No wonder that out of 
these came the man who was destined to destroy the 
pernicious bucket-shops, to be the World's Fair Presi- 
dent, and to fight the vicious element of Chicago at 
the head of the Civic Federation in that City. Great 
executive capacity and courage and shrewdness was 
called for to do these things, and he had them. He 
loomed up in any situation where he happened to be 
thrown and generally dominated it. He was high- 
strung and nervous. The town clock could be cor- 
rectly set by observance of his habits. At any appoint- 
ment or board meeting he would arrive on the hour, 
minute and second, like Phineas Fogg, and it is said 
that bank directors would set their watches by his 
coming. He often said of himself that "he lost more 
time by being prompt than in any other way/' for he 
very often had to lose time while waiting for the others 
to come. 

This father of mine would have reached the top 
in any path in life, where chance might have thrown 
him in the beginning. I have often thought that with 
such splendid material at her disposal, Fate should 
have pointed out to him a different trail than that 
which led to the Board of Trade. How incomparably 
grand would he have been as a lawyer with all his 
indomitable will and fighting qualities, his gift of 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 285 

language and debate, his high sense of justice and his 
power of mind ! I know he would have made a great 
engineer, for while associated with me, I saw it in 
his quick comprehension of natural laws and of their 
application to engineering problems. His power of 
imagination was full, complete and vivid, and he had 
only to glance at a plan on paper to have it at once 
loom up and take form in his mind, and he could then 
discuss the features of the thing to be accomplished 
as well as though it stood before him in its final and 
completed physical shape. He could have managed 
a great railroad system, and done it with a master 
hand. He would have known where to build in order to 
entice the traffic. His instinct would have pointed out 
to him where the country was to grow and where 
the trade and commerce conditions were such as to 
induce cities and towns to rise. In this way, he. was 
a veritable prophet, as demonstrated by what he fore- 
told of Seattle when I first went there, many years 
before she came to her present prestige and import- 
ance. And then he would have known how to serve 
these towns best, and how to be just and fair in dealing 
with his patrons in them. And he would never have 
juggled the property under his direction for his pri- 
vate interest or that of his particular friends, nor 
would he have kept his stockholders in ignorance of 
their road's performances and possibilities, nor would 
he have turned official information to his private 
account, nor made money out of any property sold 
to any railroad in his charge nor fleeced his stock- 



286 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

holders by any other modern method. No, not he! 
That would to him have been dishonorable and un- 
thinkable. 

He would have made a soldier, and in a crisis a 
Napoleon. He was brave, — he had no fear of any- 
thing. Military tactics and strategy were to his lik- 
ing, which facts his early life demonstrated in his 
study of Napoleon. He would rather fight than eat. 
He was a natural leader and commander, and as I 
know to my boyhood sorrow, a rigid disciplinarian. 
He possessed intense patriotism. No compromise 
would he have given nor asked, and surrender he 
would not have known the meaning of. And then 
withal, he was engineer enough to comprehend the 
relation between topographical features, the mathe- 
matics of projectiles and distances, and the construc- 
tions incidental to warfare. He believed in obedience 
to duly constituted authority and to the law, and he 
was a stickler upon rules and regulations as accepted 
and applied to business, household matters or to play. 
In our home there never rang a bell to call the family 
to their meals, but when the chimes clock began to 
toll the hour prescribed for each meal, the family 
would then begin to move from all corners of the house 
and would take their seats at the table just as the last 
note struck. He was a slave to golf and did it accord- 
ing to the "rules." He gave me my first lesson at the 
Highland Park links, by first dissertating at length 
upon the science of the game, and the proper form of 
playing it. Then he proceeded to demonstrate how 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 287 

it was done as an artist would do it, by holding the 
club just so, standing just here or there with feet 
mathematically placed just so, with eyes on the ball, 
and with club gracefully poised high in the air, then 
sweeping it downward and towards the ball in a true 
cycloidal curve with the aim and precision of a genius, 
and — tearing up a clod of turf instead of striking the 
ball. "Darn it," he said, "it don't do me any good to 
play golf, — I get so mad." And then with a clear 
explanation of how to do it "in form" in my mind, and 
an actual and partial demonstration of its execution, 
I took my place at the first tee of my life, quickly 
swung the club in the true wildwest fashion of Puget 
Sound, while Father hastened to interrupt by calling to 
me to correct my lack of style and disobedience to the 
rules : — but the ball had taken flight and sailed like an 
arrow shot from a bow, almost to the border of the 
distant green. "Well," he said "you did it all right, 
but you didn't do it right/' And I have never again 
done that trick since. 

An admirer of his in telling me of what he could 
do, said, "He could do anything that any man could 
do," and that "he would have made an abler and bet- 
ter President of the United States than many who 
have held that high office," — and those who know his 
true measure will I think endorse that statement. I 
had not thought of him as of presidential size, but I 
do now. But he had no political ambition. Some there 
are who say he did have, but that it was set aside to 
meet the requirements of his invalid wife. He was, 



288 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

however, an impossible man to fit into modern political 
machinery and methods. The Board of Trade element 
recognized his fitness for high public service, and 
strongly urged him for Secretary of the Treasury at 
one time, but he discouraged it. At another time also, 
a movement was growing to make him Mayor of 
Chicago in order to stop the public thieving and cor- 
ruption, and this he also vetoed. What a houseclean- 
ing there would have been, had he been turned loose 
upon such a situation ! It is just as well for him that 
it was not done for he probably would have been shot. 
He brought with him to each new field of duty the 
same ability, fidelity, honesty, and hard work that 
always characterized him in any other field of duty 
which he may have previously taken upon him- 
self. For work he had an unlimited capacity. It was 
work, work, strenuous work, which laid the founda- 
tion of his success in life. It was work with him, not 
solely to obtain a given objective, but to attain that 
objective in a manner above reproach and such as his 
conscience would approve of. To him, success in life 
meant nothing, unless the means of that end had been 
at all times honorable, honest and above reproach. 

He was the living expression of persistency. There 
was no let up in his mind in anything that he started 
out to do. He showed this well in our fight with the 
E. Company and M. & N. when they sought to destroy 
us in the West. It was because of this element of his 
character largely that he was installed in the Presi- 
dency of the World's Fair. It was because of this 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 289 

attribute and his constant belief in high prices of farm 
products as being helpful to the farmer and as the basis 
of national prosperity that he was always an invari- 
able bull on wheat. He never could see the opposite 
side of the situation and never took that stand. He 
characterized the bear operator as a "Pirate of com- 
merce." 

Then there was the gentle side to Father's charac- 
ter, and the true nobility that often goes with the 
rugged and determined front which strong men like 
him present to the world. He loved tenderly those 
who were near and dear to him, and he radiated with 
it in his last years a sweetness of temperament more 
often found in a woman. He was deeply religious, 
and God fearing and he grew more so as he 
came into the evening of his life. He believed 
in acting out his religion and Christian spirit 
in his everyday business and home life, for it 
would have been mockery and sham and a lie 
as he viewed things to be a regular churchman 
wearing the cloak of one who professes Christian 
principles under which to show himself on Sundays, 
and to forget the golden rule and ten commandments 
during the rest of the time. So he went to Church, not 
as a confirmed member of any, although a contri- 
buting supporter, but to hear good music and a 
scholarly sermon, which to him was simply a lecture 
on a biblical topic by a recognized authority upon the 
subject. He was the opposite of being a hypocrite in 
all things. He was good and pure in living, thought 



290 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

and speech. He never indulged in profane language, 
not even when his temper got well heated, — and even 
when he said "darn," he always looked as though he 
wished he hadn't said it, or as if he thought he might 
as well have said the real thing. 

He was impulsive — romantic, and out of business 
hours could be playful as a boy when the environments 
warranted it. He loved flowers and birds and he 
breathed inspiration from the mountains and trees, 
and all the things of beauty and wonder that Nature 
has afforded us. He was a handsome man and 
immaculate in his dress and personal appearance. His 
face beamed in his happier moods and even in repose 
it radiated light. His personality was magnetic to 
his friends and forbidding to his enemies. He pos- 
sessed unusual wit. He had the artistic temperament 
strongly developed and showed it in his fondness for 
beautiful things in general but more particularly for 
fine pictures, noble architecture and good books, and 
in his keen love for music. He was altruistic, humane, 
and charitable, and prodigal in his generosity without 
being ostentatious about it. Like many great natures 
he was a modest gentleman with poise and dignity. 
He was a man who did things, and in world building 
did more than his part. He had strong friends and of 
course bitter enemies, for such a nature necessarily 
attracts both. But his enemies respected him as much 
as did his friends. He was positively loyal, true, and 
steadfast to his friends whether up or down, and he 
was pronounced against his enemies. In the great 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 291 

church where there assembled those who had come 
to pay their last tribute before his lifeless form, there 
were those also assembled there who in bitterness had 
crossed swords with him in life and been worsted in 
the doing so. The monument that we reared for him 
in Graceland Cemetery, tells in itself to the stranger 
passing by the character of the man whose memory 
it honors, for it is a single solid block of granite, 
rugged and simple in outline, without display, but 
strong and imposing in aspect, and speaking only a 
single word, — the name which he has made it an 
honor to bear. 

It is true of mankind, that all come into the world 
destined to meet the eternal warfare which Nature 
and Mankind itself impose upon them. As soon as we 
are born the forces of nature begin to destroy through 
the agencies of disease, exposure and accident, the 
mortal part of us, and man himself begins to tear 
down and destroy the perfect soul with which each 
child has been endowed at its creation. It is only 
the fittest who survive in body, mind and character, 
for as we go onward in our lives, that which is mortal 
in us begins to depreciate after the meridian of life 
has been passed, and the final end of it is death and 
dissolution. But the immortal feature of our being 
lives on in a greater or lesser sphere as we determine 
it for ourselves, there being no termination of it, but 
rather a process beginning with life itself, of evolution, 
growth and transformation, and then transition. 
Good natures therefore as the years glide by, come 



292 LIFE OF WILLIAM TAYLOR BAKER 

nearer to their final goal of glory. They are better than 
their original elements, and rising higher than they 
have stood, become grander and more magnificent, 
like a tall and stately tree, which from a seedling in 
poor soil comes finally into a tower of beauty, strength 
and inspiration, reaching heavenwards as it grows. 
Even so it may be told of my father, that he sprang 
from the soil of poverty, that he grew in broader and 
higher manhood and soul character through the years 
of strife, until coming into the autumn of his life, 
transformed from the less perfect being of the past, 
he had only to do as he did, — lie down in a peaceful 
sleep on earth in the evening of a happy day, from 
which the awakening came in immortality in the life 
beyond. 

Thus lived and died William Taylor Baker. Who 
can say how far reaching has been his influence, or 
in what measure he has left his impress upon the 
world? There may be those who never knew him 
except at long range, but, who knowing him to the 
degree that such a public character is likely to be 
known, took their inspiration from him, and made him 
their guide for better living and for greater achieve- 
ment. We, unconsciously, in our youth particularly, 
look up to such a man, and accept him as our model 
to pattern after and grow up to. So strong a manhood 
as his, therefore, undoubtedly drew unto itself the 
approbative attention of many who saw in him the 
true ideals to which their better and more ambitious 
natures would lead them; and so all unconsciously, 




The Baker Lot in Graceland. 



HOME LIFE AND CHARACTER 293 

he, like other men of equally sterling caliber, radi- 
ated the strength and virtue within him, to be absorbed 
and expanded again by those whose natures he thus 
touched. The good that he may thus have done shall 
never be known perhaps, but we, who were close to 
him and knew him through and through, found there 
an able, honest, upright, brave and conscientious man, 
who did his duty as he knew it, and with all the 
strength and purpose at his command. What more 
could be asked of any man ? 

THE END. 



13 1908 









